To quote an old professor: "there isn't a lab table dirty enough that a little benzene won't clean it!" Fortunately for us (and him) 'they' wouldn't let him do that anymore.
He also habitually turned his head sideways when working with, say, ether, because you dont want your pipe to set the fumes on fire.
Seriously. As a biologist, my education was general enough that I learned how little I know about everything, instead giving me an inferiority complex.