That doesn't look like what many people usually call separation. (Side note: most though not all lenses use UV cured optical cement, not Canada balsam, since sometime long in the past, possibly the 1950s-60s). Element separation often looks like a series of rainbow interference fringes from a glancing angle, caused by interference in the very small gap between elements.
A pattern of small dots like that here might be due to coating or element damage from environmental factors - there are some lenses where such damage causes a haze that cannot be cleaned, possibly from reaction between lubricants and coating. But diagnosing it from only one example / one picture is uncertain.