Jelly-legs

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/10/marine-life-alexander-semenov-jellyfish

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/29/jellyfish-flourish-but-wasps-wobble-in-year-of-climate-confusion




Some thoughts on jellyfish:


Over the break I was stung on the back of the legs. Either by a jelly or by some anenomes that I brushed up against under a dock.

Please forgive me for rubbing my jelly-tropical-vacation in your faces and all over this blog. I promise you there is a relevance to class.

It burned and stang, and I couldn't quite believe it was happening. After looking on my phone and with my sister's help, I diagnosed the hives as form of fibreglass rash.... That was until a week ago, back in montreal, in the cold, and white, they returned. The itchy tentacle pattern is back on my legs. I am one with the jelly. I am part jelly.

According to the news, climate change means that it's been a good year for jellyfish. A Guardian heading from August 21st 2015 urges us to consider "Like a karmic device come to punish our planetary transgressions, jellyfish thrive on the environmental chaos humans create. Is the age of the jellyfish upon us?"

As it turns out this kind of delayed sensitivity, or delayed reaction which I'm experiencing is common. But the effect of this venom on humans is not very well understood. WebMD says this kind of thing can last for few months. And strike again, repeatedly. In fact it was this this line of inquiry about how long will I be itchy, how to stop itchy, why me, and what is the effect of sea anenome venom, that I learnt about the history of anaphylaxis. It was discovered by Charles Richet and Paul Portier who had been experimenting with the toxicity of sea anenome venom on dogs. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14989211

Hist Sci Med. 2003 Oct-Dec;37(4):463-9.

[The discovery of anaphylaxis, a brief but triumphant encounter of two physiologists (1902)].

[Article in French]

Richet G.

Abstract

In 1901, during one of his oceanography cruises, Prince Albert the First of Monaco asks Paul Portier and Charles Richet to study the toxicity of small jellyfish fishing filaments (Coelentera). In the course of their work on the effects of a hypnotoxin extracted from various coelentera, they observe mortal accidents that are not a function of the dosage of the injections. Dogs that respond this way have all received a preparative injection, yet some dogs have no reaction to a second injection. In contrast the injection are activating when they occur more than 10 to 12 days after the first. This phenomenon is independent of the administered dosage, which may well be inferior to a toxic quantity. They call this phenomenon anaphylaxis, the contrary of protection, and analyze its primary characteristics. Paul Portier eventually returns to the Faculty of Sciences where he is Dastre's assistant. Charles Richer pursues research on anaphylaxis on his own in his laboratory at the Medical Faculty. By showing that an immune response could be pathogen as well as healing, these two scientists - who did not know each other before, working together for a few short months - made a discovery that opened up new venues in the growing field of medical immunology.

All this is to say is that jellyfish may be a good starting point for me to consider the anthropocene and affect. What can we learn from jellyfish? How can we conceive of a jellybody thinking? How is it that the jellyfish has left a mark on my legs? How is it that my body still reacts as if the jellyfish is still there?  What is a supernormal stimulus? Supernomal excess?