What matters isn't where the idea comes from but how it can help people. Mould is also made of tiny particles too small to see with the ordinary eye! There is a link between ablutions and disease and good health, yes. So it's one of several reasons.

Other ways you can test this theory are asking clerics to examine the two vessels, they can detect sources of disease, or by checking who gets sick. You can't go make people sick on purpose though, obviously.

She wants this to be clearly readable and understandable by a great many people.

...Right. Um. He'll carry on not eating mould. This is great cleverness and he wishes the scholar luck with her theories. How did she come to know this? 

Anyway, "diseases come from tiny animals biting you inside, kill them with soap or boiling or alcohol" is not that difficult a concept. This suggestion to do some kind of ritual in order to know of it is a little strange but obviously approved of, so, all right! You wouldn't have thought it would be safe to deliberately grow an uncleanliness as part of a ritual prayer for knowledge of disease but clearly it is! Some people will test it. 

She learned of it in a strange and distant land. It's safe if you follow appropriate precautions like dumping the whole thing out- Preferably not where it'll get into drinking water- And washing thoroughly when you're done trying it.

Have a nice day!

"That didn't seem super promising, as far as responses go. Maybe I'm expecting too much academic interest from people with work and shopping to get to? Yeah, this first draft was definitely written for the intelligentsia and not the proletariat. But I'd hate to dumb it down too far and just state the conclusion, that's... It feels incorrect and hypocritical. Since I'm trying to disprove another group of people who also have a lot of tidy theories and probably very little evidence to back it up. But they'll just go- Nu-uh! You're just declaring things and justifying them, you're wrong! Sigh. I think evidence-based rebuttals might not be the best approach. I guess this calls for an evaluation of my goals here, my win condition. What do I want? I want them to not be a problem for my antibiotics and medical education line. I want them to not confuse the narrative or start declaring that I'm wrong and making people mistrust new medicines. I'm irrationally annoyed at their entire so called college, but that's pique, not a valid reason. It'd be nice if I could peel away the thoughtful and inquisitive types to work for me instead but they might bring stubborn ideas with them... I want to help people, and shattering the college without anything in mind to replace what portion of actually useful services they provide doesn't help people..."

"No, I thought that was weird too, it was like he just wasn't interested for some reason!" She looks honestly baffled. "I mean - he clearly understood enough, right? It wasn't as if he couldn't get the idea!" She has heard that most humans are, um, quite slow, she half expected him to just stare, but she can't imagine not caring. "But something people can actually try for themselves is... really useful, I think, it's not something they'll expect, they'll have to either ignore it or meet you on your own ground! And, honestly, I'd heard bad things about everywhere outside the Academy but they're worse than I expected I completely get it."

"Education is the root of societal progress. Society is made up of people, you can't fix things without fixing the people- But most people don't have a lot of effort and energy to spare after earning their daily bread... Ach, this thought process is going in circles. I'll make the connection to mold more clear or maybe rephrase it entirely. The white film that develops on broth isn't even technically mold, mostly, it's a bacterial mat... Okay, so the goal should be, inspiring critical thinking skills and starting an academic debate. Getting attention, even confused or negative attention, is the first step towards positive growth in a lot of ways..."

"That's... sad. I understand why you can't, but I wish you could be doing this at home, there everyone would be interested... although I mean come to think of it we've only asked one person. And the Physicians, who... I don't know where they came from, honestly."

"...Somehow I like the idea of getting attention."

"I should rewrite it as more of a manifesto then. If we're not only focusing on the experimental process. Talk about my own efforts, and founding the... College of Medicine. The evils of disease and new ways to fight them. Maybe put a nice dramatic splash art at the top..."

"I'll sign it with you! I'm a graduate, that should go some way towards helping! And... hmm, could we do some kind of big impressive public demonstration?"

"I'm sort of itching to do some proper surgery. I won't be able to make more for a while, but I have a good amount of finished cybernetics in my lab stocks... I could restore sight to the blind, but not by miracle, that would be pretty dramatic? Find someone who needs new eyes... Eh, I don't love that idea, though."

"That would be really impressive and show you had - something real, something important! I think...  you seem to like teaching, you could set it up like that..."

"I can announce that I intend to hold classes. Perhaps I'll need to rent a lecture hall, the manor isn't really suitable for it, nor is the riverside property..."

Well. She will wander back inside and start to take care of these matters. Inquiring about a place for teaching- They can't really have dozens of people in and out of the house, and even with thrice the attention span she can't actually teach hundreds of students at once... But before organizing a school, edits to the pamphlet. Clarifications on the nature of mold and bacterial mats, and what precautions you should take when doing bio experiments. A nice cover art taking up half the first page. And a new section on what she is calling her manifesto; That disease is horrible, but that it should and can be broken not just by clerics but with tools, craft, industry, knowledge. That she will prove these work the same way as demonstrations may prove the germ theory of disease, and that she will teach the noble art of medicine, learned in distant lands- In a location yet to be determined, but soon.

One more proofreading pass with Naevys and then it's off to her hacked label printer.