formaldehyde

Impulse by Dr David Lewisを読んでいます。
In time I was accepted into medical school and started working to achieve my lifetime's ambition. Eighteen months into my medical studies, wandering aimlessly around that second-hand bookshops, I chanced upon a copy of People I Have Shot by James Jarche, one of Fleet Street's earliest press photographers. Jarche's life story fascinated me and rekindled my interest in photography. I spent half the night reading it and, the following morning, hunched over a formaldehyde-soaked limb in the dissecting room, decided on an impulse to give up medicine and study photography instead.
文脈からして "formaldehyde-soaked" はホルマリン漬けのことだと思いますが、 "formaldehyde" も昔高校生の頃に化学の時間で見聞きした覚えがあります。しかし、それは私にとって50年以上も前のことなので "formaldehyde" とホルマリンがどんな関係か思い出せません。まず辞書で "formaldehyde" を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A colorless pungent gas in solution made by oxidizing methanol.: Formalin, a solution of formaldehyde, is also used in tanning leather and preserving corpses.
・Collins Dictionary: Formaldehyde is a strong-smelling gas, used especially to preserve parts of animals or plants for biological study.: The 46-year-old is famous for exhibiting animals in formaldehyde and skull sculptures.
なるほど、"formalin" は "formaldehyde" の水溶液でした。