Re: HARP-L Digest V94 #286

[Barry C Schaede <barrys@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I find the moldy harmonicas question intriguing.  Not living in a wet 
climate I regret that I will be unable to conduct any experiments.  I 
don't think that the mold was necessarily a result of the wood comb.  I 
think it might have grown 
on the dried saliva and breath that collected on the comb.  Recent 
articles in food industry publications have recently debunked the widely 
held belief that plastic is a superior sanitary surface for cutting 
boards and food preperation areas.  It seems that if you contaminate a 
cutting board with e-coli bacteria then test for the presence of the 
bacteria 5 minutes later the plastic cutting board will have a very high 
level of contamination and the wood will have an extremely low level of 
residual bacteria.  Now I realize that mold and bacteria are entirely 
different organisms, but I wonder if plastic combed harmonicas might be 
induced to grow mold if left in damp or humid conditions for a period of 
time.  Again I'm intrigued and am not even advancing this as theory.  FJM