HAZARDS IN THE LABORATORY : Laboratories in the biology department of schools, colleges and universities and other higher level organisation such as hospitals, veterinary establishments, pharmaceutical companies, departments of forensic sciences etc. are all concerned with the examination of living or dead organisms and animal, human and plant tissues or specimens taken from these sources. The same is true of many laboratories that monitor the output of food production factories, or that many out environmental monitoring.

The particular hazards of biology lab are infections and other diseases. Along with these,  common hazards of chemistry laboratories are also present. Infections and allergies can be caused by the inhalation and ingestion of substances in the form of fumes, fine spray or aerosol produced during pouring, stirring. centrifugation, etc, or as a dust from dried material. Infected matter can also penetrate into the body through cuts, scratches and other breaks in the surface of the skin. Other dangers in biology labs come from keeping of experimental animals and the possibility of stings, bites and scratches.

You can see in the list given below some of the causes of most common dangers which you would meet in biology lab work:

1. Sharps, i.e. needles, scalpels, razors, glass, lancets, microtome blades, hypodermic needles, pins and awls.

2. Microorganisms, cultures.

3. Lab animals and their carcasses, bedding, litter.

4. Electrical equipment such as aquaria, water baths, incubators, ovens.

5. Heaters such as autoclaves, ovens, Bunsen burners.

6. Solvents for chromatography, histology.

7. Hazardous solutions during pipetting and handling.

8. Carcinogens such as stains, e.g. fuchsine, solvents, peslicides, preservatives, crude oil.

9. Toxicants or toxic substances, e.g. fixatives, preservatives, pesticides.

10. Radioactive tracers. ,

11. Intense light sources like ultraviolet rays.

12. Spores, pollen, plants, preservatives that cause allergies and hypersensitivity.

In this unit we want to concentrate on the first three the of the list as these relate directly to the fundamental dangers of the biology lab, namely disease and infection. You will study about other items in the other units of this course or in other course of this programme.