{"id":746,"date":"2009-10-21T20:17:15","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T20:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2009\/10\/21\/in_which_i_react\/"},"modified":"2009-10-21T20:17:15","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T20:17:15","slug":"in_which_i_react","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2009\/10\/21\/in_which_i_react\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I react"},"content":{"rendered":"

A good scientist is never off-duty, which is perhaps why researchers throughout history have experimented on themselves. The 18th century anatomist John Hunter is said to have tested the infectious nature of gonorrhea by applying a patient’s pus to his own pertinent organ. In the 19th century, James Young Simpson proved that chloroform is an excellent anesthesia by knocking himself out, along with two unlucky assistants. And as recently as 1982, Barry Marshall could truly be said to have earned<\/em> his eventual Nobel Prize for proving that ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori bacteria \u2013 after drinking a lovely cloudy solution of the microscopic culprits. <\/p>\n

\nThe other day, I was having lunch with my friend Daniel Glaser at the champagne bar in St Pancras International station. The item that most tempted me on the menu was a risotto with mussels, although I hesitated ordering at first. I tend to avoid shellfish, mostly because having a PhD in Microbiology indoctrinates you with a deep-seated squeamishness about all things Salmonella-related. But a few weeks previously, I’d decided to face my silly fears and had downed a gorgeous seafood pasta at Paradiso. It didn’t give me food poisoning, but almost immediately after finishing my lips started tingling, my eyes began to water and I developed mild respiratory problems that lasted a few days. After googling a bit, I decided it had probably been a mild allergic reaction \u2013 apparently quite common in adults, even if they’d never reacted as children \u2013 but I didn’t know which had been to blame, the prawns or the mussels. <\/p>\n

\nSo here I was, presented with a good experimental opportunity. If I ate the risotto and didn’t react, it was likely to have been the prawns that had troubled me earlier. But if I succumbed to the allergy, I’d know it was time to kiss mussels goodbye forever. <\/p>\n

\n“Go for it,” Daniel advised, reasoning that knowledge was power and it would be good to know one way or the other. It was easy for him to say. Scientific curiosity notwithstanding, I was marginally less enthusiastic: the respiratory symptoms had made it difficult to sleep last time, and I wasn’t thrilled about going through all that again so soon. Also, food allergies can be dangerously capricious: hives one day and anaphylaxis the next.<\/p>\n

\n“Don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I trained as a paramedic in the Israeli army.”<\/p>\n

\nReassuring.<\/p>\n

\nI’m sure you know where this is going. Dear reader, I ate that risotto. And about a minute after finishing, I experienced the same symptoms \u2013 plus a few new ones.<\/p>\n

\n“It’s unlikely to be psychosomatic,” Dan said helpfully, when \u2013 a bit of iPhonery later \u2013 it turned out the added extras also fit. “You wouldn’t make up symptoms you weren’t expecting.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Actually, we could have designed this experiment a lot better.”<\/p>\n

\nAs I coughed discreetly into my serviette, he outlined a plan designed to reproduce the day’s results and delve further into the important question of whether I had to eat the actual mussel or whether sauce containing mussels would be enough.<\/p>\n

\n“You need to go to Marks and Spencers and buy all the permutations as ready-meals!” he said. “Then you draw a matrix and test all the possibilities. Of course you’d have to take a few days in between if you’d reacted, just to clear your system…and maybe you could try it with and without a prophylactic dose of antihistamines…oh, that’s a lot more permutations…”<\/p>\n

\nI don’t think I’ll be eating shellfish again, experimentally or otherwise. I can report that prompt intake of over-the-counter antihistamines does seem to alleviate a food allergy \u2013 the symptoms were milder and only lasted few hours. Of course I can’t really prove it, but I like to think that in a parallel universe there was a control me, miserable and coughing into her pillow later that night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good scientist is never off-duty, which is perhaps why researchers throughout history have experimented on themselves. The 18th century anatomist John Hunter is said to have tested the infectious nature of gonorrhea by applying a patient’s pus to his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}