FOXING or MOLD ON BOOK

[Fan4Fan]

except that foxing is neither a mold nor a fungus . . .

 

"Application of Scanning Electron Microscope in the Field of Conservation Science of Cultural Properties," by Toshiko Kenjo, Hideo Arai and Toshiaki Suzuki. JEOL News Vol. 25E No. 1, p. 13-17, 1987. ISBN 0385-4426. (JEOL News is a journal about electronic optics instrumentation.)

 

Foxing was induced in the lab in two ways, by incubation of fungi (which grew on paper with or without metal inclusions) and by introduction of iron to paper. Author Hideo Arai considers that the main cause of foxing is fungal growth. Five refs. (3B2.39)

 

 

 

"Induced Foxing by Components Found in Foxed Areas," by Hideo Arai, Noritaka Matsumura and Hiroyuki Murakita. ICOM Committee for Conservation, 9th Triennial Meeting, Dresden, GDR, 26-31 August 1990, Preprints, p. 801-803. (Working Group 25, Control of Biodeterioration)

 

In previous work, the authors established that xerophilic fungi are the main causes of foxing, and that they deposit L-malic acid, glucose, cello-oligosaccharides and 16 amino acids in foxed areas. Here they report work showing that L-malic acid, glucose and g-aminobutyric acid stimulate foxing the most. The optimum environment for the induction of foxing is 75% RH and 35°C. (3B2.39)

 

Yes, I read the Arai abstracts during my research last year and was not swayed by the conclusions they made. Due to the mycelial structure of fungi, the growth patterns of fungi are generally uniformly dendritic. Foxing is not. In fact, it is most often observed and described as "splotchy" or "speckled" or by some other non-dendritic adjective. I think the flaw is in the initial assumptions made by various researchers who have attributed it to a fungal origin.

 

Couldn't the dendritic pattern be suppressed to the point that we get only the endpoints and not any of the connecting branches?