Petri dish contaminations are commonplace and personally witnessed by every microbiologist. The vast majority of such contaminations result in nothing more than annoyance following which the Petri dishes are discarded. However, a handful of incidents of contaminations have led to momentous outcomes, the most renowned of which being that perceived by Alexander Fleming on the basis of the immense number of lives saved by penicillin. Petri dish contaminations as reported upon in the literature fall broadly into two categories; those in which the contaminant caused antagonism toward the species being cultured, and those in which the contaminant was established to be a species novum. Accounts of both of these categories of contaminations are set out here.

培养皿污染司空见惯，每位微生物学家都亲眼目睹。绝大多数此类污染只会引起烦恼，随后丢弃培养皿。然而，少数污染事件导致了重大后果，其中最著名的是亚历山大·弗莱明 (Alexander Fleming) 认为青霉素挽救了大量生命的结果。文献中报道的培养皿污染大致分为两类；那些其中朝向物种污染物引起的拮抗作用被培养，和其中所述污染物被确定为一个物种Novum酒店。此处列出了这两种污染类别的说明。