Mallory's trichrome stain

For tissues that are not directly acidic or basic, it can be difficult to use only one stain to reveal the necessary structures of interest.

A combination of the three different stains in precise amounts applied in the correct order reveals the details selectively.

[1] The staining technique was first published in 1900 by Frank Burr Mallory, then a histologist at Harvard University Medical School.

[2] Many variants of the method exist to simplify or speed processing or to stain other materials.

[3] The primary application when the stain was introduced was differentiation of structures in connective tissue, and this remains its most common use.