What Would Happen If The Sweat Gland Cells Produced A Large Amount Of Reactive Chemicals?

[LisaL]

I read about a mother who claims this happens with her baby and is causing his skin to catch fire every time he sweats. I know there are reactive metabolic products eg hydrogen peroxide, hypochlorite, and others but from a biological standpoint is what she is claiming a possibility? Some person who commented on her story said the reactive chemicals would concentrate as the sweat dried, making them even more reactive, and so when the toxic sweat dried, an exothermic chemical reaction happened on the skin.

[Moontanman]

I read about a mother who claims this happens with her baby and is causing his skin to catch fire every time he sweats. I know there are reactive metabolic products eg hydrogen peroxide, hypochlorite, and others but from a biological standpoint is what she is claiming a possibility? Some person who commented on her story said the reactive chemicals would concentrate as the sweat dried, making them even more reactive, and so when the toxic sweat dried, an exothermic chemical reaction happened on the skin.

 

See this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_syndrome_by_proxy

[LisaL]

I'm just wondering if her claim is a *possibility* here. I'm not implying what she's saying is true, I just want to know if that scenario is a biological possibility.

Edited May 9, 2015 by LisaL

[Moontanman]

I'm just wondering if her claim is a *possibility* here. I'm not implying what she's saying is true, I just want to know if that scenario is a biological possibility.

 

 

I would have to say no.

[LisaL]

Why's that? 

[CraigD]

I'm just wondering if her claim is a *possibility* here. I'm not implying what she's saying is true, I just want to know if that scenario is a biological possibility.

I would have to say no.

I agree.

 

Depending on its “thickness”, human sweat is between 99 and 99.8% water, one of the more flame-retardant compounds there is. It has traces of chemical compounds, such as CON₂H₄ (urea) that can be used to make explosives, such as CH₅N₃O₄, but you’d have to distill it and combine it with very corrosive chemicals to do that – nothing that could occur naturally in or on the skin. I can’t imagine anything that could naturally form from sweat that could spontaneously combust in air.

 

I read about a mother who claims this happens with her baby and is causing his skin to catch fire every time he sweats.

Like Moontanman, my guess is that such a story, if true, is evidence of the mother’s mental illness, not some rate physiological conditions of her baby.

 

What’s the source of this story, Lisa? I expect it would be much easier to determine its veracity with some journalistic detective work than speculating about physiochemistry.

[LisaL]

I know that sweat is mostly water, but that is in a normal situation. I'm wondering what would happen if the sweat cells for instance had a high concentration of reactive metabolites in them for whatever reason (mutation, defect, etc) so that sweat with a large concentration of reactive metabolites dried on the skin. When the water evaporates away, the chemicals concentrate, and become more reactive. There is a video on YouTube showing what happens when hydrogen peroxide (surprisingly a human metabolic product) dries on leather (smouldering, then flames)

 

Source of story (though I don't want the question detracted from) 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/mum-set-fire-both-babies-5270194

Edited May 10, 2015 by LisaL

[Moontanman]

I know that sweat is mostly water, but that is in a normal situation. I'm wondering what would happen if the sweat cells for instance had a high concentration of reactive metabolites in them for whatever reason (mutation, defect, etc) so that sweat with a large concentration of reactive metabolites dried on the skin. When the water evaporates away, the chemicals concentrate, and become more reactive. There is a video on YouTube showing what happens when hydrogen peroxide (surprisingly a human metabolic product) dries on leather (smouldering, then flames)

 

Source of story (though I don't want the question detracted from) 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/mum-set-fire-both-babies-5270194

 

 

Lisa what you are asking is not probable, in fact it is about as probable as all the oxygen molecules in the room you currently occupy rushing to one corner and you suffocating. Yes that is a statistical possibility but the universe won't exist long enough for it to happen. 

 

If a baby did what you are asking about it would not be a human baby because the chemical involved would kill any human. 

 

BTW Hydrogen peroxide does not "dry" before becoming a flaming hell, all it needs is an organic material that will oxidise, it's the concentration that is important. Reasonably pure Hydrogen peroxide is dangerous stuff, all it needs is a fuel... 

[LisaL]

Did you see the one with the Indian baby? The mother angrily denied burning her babies. She brought the babies to the hospital herself when it happened.

[CraigD]

I'm wondering what would happen if the sweat cells for instance had a high concentration of reactive metabolites in them for whatever reason (mutation, defect, etc) so that sweat with a large concentration of reactive metabolites dried on the skin.

If you consider the possibility of genes not known to exists in humans – I thik it’s very, very unlikely such a thing could happen due to a spontaneous mutation – then you’re essentially asking if any biological organism can secrete a sweat-like fluid that can cause a powerful exothermic reaction.

 

We know the answer to this question is “yes”, because there is a group of animal that does this, bombardier beetles. They don’t injure themselves the way Rajeshwari Karnan claims her babies did, but rather secrete via special glands a dilute H₂O₂ solution into one special reservoir, a dilute solution of C₆H₄(OH)₂ onto another which they can voluntarily combine in special vestibule, where an enzyme catalyzes a creation heating the mixture to about 100 C, expelling it as steam-powered, scalding jet that can kill other insects, and be painful to humans.

 

In principle, if you could somehow insert the many genes in a bombardier beetle into human skin cells, you could get a system like the beetle’s that could scald the human’s skin. I can’t imagine such a gene evolving naturally in a human, though, because rather giving the human population a useful defense system as it does with the beetle, it would be useless or hurtful.

 

So the only way I can imagine injuries occurring the way Karnan claims her babies were injured would be some sort of “mad scientist” genetic alteration. I think it would take a well-financed team of capable mad scientists and/or a brilliant one. And they’d have to be evil, too. ;)

[Buffy]

Did you see the one with the Indian baby? The mother angrily denied burning her babies. She brought the babies to the hospital herself when it happened.

 

Have you done any research on Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy? It's much more common than normally recognized and is often found to be behind such stories.

 

 

A mystery of the universe is how it has managed to survive with so much volunteer help, :phones:

Buffy

[LisaL]

She angrily denied burning them though. 

[pgrmdave]

She angrily denied burning them though. 

 People lie. Don't trust anecdotes you hear from people, even first hand ones. Don't trust second hand reports of anything. If something doesn't jive with what we know to be true and likely then it is much more likely to be false than it is that somehow scientists have missed something major for centuries.  Don't trust stories you read in published books. 

 

Or you can choose to be wrong more often than not. Maybe, once in a while, every few decades or so you'll be right and everybody else will be wrong, but that'll mostly be accidental.  I'd rather be right 99% of the time than 1% of the time.

[Buffy]

She angrily denied burning them though. 

 

Deep denial is the primary trait of Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy. People who suffer from it are completely convinced that they are *helping* the people that they are doing harm to, and have the ability to completely block their memories of doing so.

 

As a result "angry denial" is exactly what would be expected in cases such as this one where Munchausen's is diagnosed.

 

 

I protect myself by refusing to know myself, :phones:

Buffy

[LisaL]

She said she had a daughter who did not burn. 

Psychiatric testing was done on the mother and her family and it turned out normal..

 

And she said when it happened it happened in the presence of her husband also.

Apparently the mother was illiterate and so couldn't have known about SHC.

Edited May 13, 2015 by LisaL

[Buffy]

Yah okay now I've read the article, and while the Daily Mirror is one of the many notorious British tabloids known for alien abduction articles, even they clearly state at the very top of the article that the authorities suspect Munchausen's. As is usual for tabloids the source of the lines you repeat above that the family underwent psychiatric testing and was found normal is not at all clear--could have been done directly by the family to "prove" the authorities were wrong--but the article is clear that the hospital still would not release the child back to the family.

 

So you have to be very careful here about cherry-picking your facts from an article like this in your obvious assumption that it really is all true and actually did happen.

 

Now it turns out there's a fascinating tidbit at the end of the article that I would have expected you to pick up on and make clearer in your post:There is a reference to a Professor Brian J. Ford who the article claims has "has argued in two articles, one of which appeared in the New Scientist, that spontaneous human combustion may be caused by a chemical called acetone that is produced naturally."

 

Tracking him down was a little difficult because most articles referencing him are breathless and uncritical "spontaneous human combustion is real!" articles that nonetheless detail what he's done to "prove the possibility" of such events.

 

Turns out he basically just used the fact that a variety of conditions can produce ketosis which produces small amounts of acetone which normally is expelled through urine or respiration, in conjunction with performing an experiment in which he *marinated* a pork belly (about 50% fat) and then lit it with a *torch*, and then it burned.

 

He made no attempt to show how a human who even under extraordinary circumstances produces so little acetone as to be able to get rid of it simply by breathing and is so volitile that it's hard to build up in large quantities over a long period of time, would somehow reproduce the conditions of completely marinating the fattiest tissues in the body. (Side note: there are jokes in some of the articles about his work saying spontaneous human combustion is probably a result of going on the Atkins diet which emphasizes low-fat protein and is known to enhance ketosis).

 

If you read his articles carefully, you'll notice that he's not really saying that he's demonstrated the entire process by which SHC occurs, just that he's pieced together some possibilities, but he takes pride in being the first to demonstrate how it *might* work.

 

Professor Ford is a microbiologist, but he likes getting into topics he knows little about and has also done a little damage to his reputation by insisting that all large dinosaurs were actually aquatic, in spite of endless fossil examples to the contrary.

 

He also apparently is pretty good boogie piano player, and appeared on a local television program in Cardiff in the early 60s that also featured the Welsh singer who would become Tom Jones.

 

I also found another article on the incident in which alternate--and more plausible causes--were discussed:

 

The local media has put forward other theories about the cause for Rahul's burns. The Indian newspaper The Hindu pointed out that the village where the infant's mother is from had mysterious fires that burned down multiple homes in 2004.... Those fires were later found to have been caused by phosphorous cow dung that was used in building materials and had a very low ignition point.

 

Source: ABC News, "Indian Baby Released After No Signs of Spontaneous Combustion" 8/23/2013

 

The article also mentions that she was not in the room when the fire started, so really doesn't know anything....at least that's what she said....

 

I do think you might find in looking at stories like this that too much credulity can really get in the way of understanding things.

 

 

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience, :phones:

Buffy