Potassium permanganate, a fungicide best used on animals

Question: “Have you heard of Condy’s Crystals as a fungicide?”, asks T.W., a school head gardener in Brisbane. Potassium permanganate was created 1659 by Johann Glauber. To make it, he combined manganese oxide ore with potassium hydroxide forming the compound KMnO4. At school I was taught this is a reducing agent, meaning potassium permanganate loses electrons and…