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> I would preserve the random dish for comparison to the more rigorous follow up experiment This would also explain why the dish was treated with formaldehyde

• pcrh 10mo ago
  Preserving biological/medical specimens with formaldehyde so that they may be re-examined later is a common practice that still occurs today. So it isn't surprising here. The alternative would be to freeze the specimens, but that is more cumbersome than stacking formaldehyde-fixed plates on a shelf, and specimens may alter upon repeated freezing and thawing.
  • NetMageSCW 10mo ago
    The surprising part (or the smart part) is preserving a dish that was randomly contaminated with an unknown mold instead of throwing it out.
    • pcrh 10mo ago
      What's missing from the accounts is why he had those plates there in the first place. Why was he placing plates streaked with staphylococcus near a window and then peering at them every few days? Perhaps he was testing some other hypothesis that didn't turn out? The effect of sunlight on staphylococcal growth, maybe? Or perhaps the window is simply incidental?
      • jonny_eh 10mo ago
        > and then peering at them every few days? He only noticed after he got back from vacation, or so the story goes. And it may not have been an open window, could have been a desk near the doorway.