Yep, looks like a research/lab incubator to me too. Have a few similar items in the lab I'm in now. My best guess is that it was used for bacterial cultures or just plain drying slides/heating paraffin/keeping things warm depending on how hot it was able to get. Wipe it down just to get lab junk off of it but any "life" is probably long dead from the thing as lab strains of bacteria/animals are weak when exposed to "real life" and often die just like that. The heating of the unit is likly the floor of the machine, just see where the thermostat is connected to and follow the wires. I believe member AngieChick salvaged a similar old lab incubator and retrofitted it to hatch eggs. If I remember right, in the end, the incubator was used as the housing and all the termostat/heating/air circulation items were added on.
As a side note... we don't use the old equipment in lab for anything requiring precision anymore. So if you want to use it, I'd recommend using it as the shell.
