Dubos, Avery and failure

I insist on Dubos to celebrate the difficulties of research:

"Every culture that I put in the incubator is a test of myself against nature, and every morning I verify the results. I know the emotion of the gambler who returns to his dice but I often have the impression that my activity is as futile as the on eof the gambler"

A typical reaction from Avery when experiments failed was to end discouragement with the admonition:

"Now boys, whenever you fall, pick up something"