CSI Birvidik
27 January 2015
or Chilli con Carnage
Locard's Principle of Exchange is one the fundamental concepts of Forensic Science. In essence, it states that whenever an individual enters an environment, traces of material are exchanged in both directions. As Locard himself pithily put it: 'Every contact leaves a trace', only being French he said 'Chaque contact laisse une trace' and probably gave a bit of a shrug and a moue to emphasise the essential existential pointlessness of the whole business.
The pertinence of Locard's astute observation became clear to me recently when I decided to help Liz with the cooking. Those readers still in search of a life will remember the entry Not just a flash in the pan from the 6th November last. From that memory they will expect no good to come of letting me loose in the kitchen. They will not be disappointed.
After that debacle I am not permitted to carry out any critical or potentially hazardous culinary tasks. Instead I am limited to the preparation of ingredients. The logic here is that even though this involves letting me loose with a potentially lethal array of very sharp implements, at least I'm only likely to hurt myself rather than sink the boat or take out half the marina in a violent and uncontrollable conflagration.
So it was that I was relegated to chopping and slicing duties. The plat du jour was Spicy Carrot and Lentil Soup. The carrot and lentil bits did not pose a problem. The 'spicy' bit however involved my chopping up some fresh chillis, which I did with considerable aplomb and without the loss of too much blood or any significant body parts.
Unfortunately, soon afterwards I forgot about Locard's perspicacious observation and rubbed my right eye with my, by now chilli-contaminated, finger. It's amazing stuff capsaicin - no wonder riot police love the stuff.
According to its toxicity report Capsaicin is a highly irritant material requiring proper protective goggles, respirators, and stringent hazardous material-handling procedures. Capsaicin takes effect upon skin contact (irritant, sensitizer), eye contact (irritant), ingestion, and inhalation (lung irritant, lung sensitizer). The LD50 in mice is 47.2 mg/kg. My back-of-the-envelope calculation translating that figure to humans indicates that an 80 kg man would need a dose of a tad under four grams of capsaicin to stand a 50% chance of it killing him. That works out at around 2kg of jalopenos.
The report further states that exposure to capsaicin-containing peppers causes burning or stinging pain to the skin and, if ingested in large amounts by adults or small amounts by children, can produce nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and burning diarrhea. Eye exposure produces intense searing pain, conjunctivitis, and blepharospasm.
They weren't wrong.
My eyeball felt like someone was scrubbing it with red hot sandpaper. Tears streamed out of my eye and the eyelid screwed up, making me look like Robin Williams playing Popeye. I rushed to the forward heads and flooded my eye with cold water. This was of little help as capsaicin does not dissolve in water. All it did was cool the sensation temporarily. The stuff does dissolve in alcohol, or it can be emulsified with a strong detergent, but I didn't fancy adding insult to injury by pouring brandy or neat fairy liquid directly on my eyeball. In the end I went for the palliative approach and held an ice pack to my eye until the sensation had worn off. Once the burning had subsided to the merely agonizing I washed my hands and carried bravely on.
As a general principle, we subscribe to the notion that it's good idea to keep well hydrated. To that end, we try to drink a lot.
Of water.
On the day in question, we had been particularly assiduous in this and, of course, what goes in must, eventually, come out. I needed a pee. Sensitive readers should look away now. I excused myself and went to the forward heads.
I have never even attempted to master the politically correct technique of sitting down for a pee. I am, however, more than willing to meet our feminine counterparts halfway and always lower the lid afterwards. Evolution has obviously given men that funny little pointy hose thing for a reason. It seems unlikely that it evolved purely for the amusement of writing your initials in the snow, so I suspect its primary advantage is that it makes urination much more convenient and less vulnerable to attacks by predators. I did think of another purpose but it temporarily slips my mind.
I had, of course, failed to appreciate the full subtlety of Locard's observation. Every contact leaves a trace. Even after washing. Just as our soup now contained minute traces of keratin from my fingernails, so my fingernails still contained minute traces of capsaicin, which transferred onto the wee hosey thing. For the enlightenment of those not intimately acquainted with said appendage, I should point out that some of the skin on it is equally as sensitive as that around the eye. Liz wondered how I had suddenly developed a talent for break dancing in confined spaces.
I grabbed my washbag and scuttled to the showers looking like a cowboy who'd lost his horse and stotting like a gazelle. I stripped off faster than a televangelist at a hookers' convention, whacked the shower on full and lathered up.
The guy in the next cubicle must have had his suspicions as to what was going on, considering the staccato of 'ooh', 'aah' and grunt noises emanating from my cubicle, culminating in a huge sigh of relief as the burning finally stopped. It's just as well he couldn't see the frantic scrubbing actions that accompanied the soundtrack.
Cooled, refreshed and pain-free I toweled myself dry, dressed and made my way back to Birvidik. Locard, however, had one more trick up his sleeve. As I walked back down the pontoon, a by now familiar burning sensation asserted itself. This was similar to, but worse than, the final, outgoing effects of consuming a particularly vicious vindaloo and goes by the name of a well known Johnny Cash song. Those who had a sheltered upbringing, and still have no idea what I'm on about, I refer back to the section on ingestion in the above-mentioned toxicity report (paragraph seven). Just as I had left traces from my fingers on my wee hosey thing, I had also, in my frantic disrobing, left traces from my fingers (and my wee hosey thing) on my underwear. All that was needed was a little movement to ensure a snug fit and voila - Locard strikes again.
I executed an abrupt about-turn and scampered back to the showers, returning some time later with the offending underwear safely wrapped in a biohazard bag. All of which leads me to wonder - if a tiny bit of chilli can spread itself about like that, what chance do infection control protocols have in stopping the spread of diseases?
You won't catch me working as an Ebola nurse.