The taste of fixer

[tkamiya]

John,

I bet you drink your developer every morning!

 

[edp]

It is traditional at this point to link to that video on You Tube of the guy who turned into a smurf from drinking colloidal silver.

 

[ic-racer]

Actually if you are blue, fixer sometimes was the treatment. (Sodium thiosulfate had an indication for methemoglobinemia with cyanosis (refuted here). Though now used mostly for Cyanide poisining (which does not produce cyanosis).)

Seriously, unless the guy in the original post has hereditary G6PD deficiency, the (sodium thiosulfate) fixer is unlikely to harm him.

 

[Roger Cole]

The blue color is from ingesting the silver contained in used fixer. The one case I heard of (unsubstantiated, read it on the Internet so you know it's true...) was after someone tasted straight used fixer for years. A taste of rinse water is probably not much of a threat.

 

[ic-racer]

chemicals easily broken down by metabolism

Actually ingested sodium thiosulfate is not metabolized and it is excreted unchanged in the urine and feces. So you can re-use it if you want...

 

[EKDobbs]

I've not had the fortune to taste fixer, but I accidentally got a bit of dektol on my lips and tongue (dropped flashlight in the mixing container, later put it in my mouth while I was looking for something), and that does not taste good. Like salt, but weird and way worse.

 

[hadeer]

I am very moved by the concern for my health that a lot of the reactions here express. I can assure everyone that I am doing well although at 69 I need spectacles to really see the grain in my prints. Nothing to do with tasting fixer I bet. Used to spit it out anyway. Thanks, I am having a wonderful time reading about all those experiences and sharing the knowledge. Hans.

 

[bsdunek]

If I want something to drink while in the darkroom, I check the 'fridge.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Interesting thread...

While no one should be recommending ingesting dangerous chemicals, it is interesting to note that the human tongue is apparently quite a sensitive instrument and can (and was and is) pressed into service for various types of chemical analyses.

If I remember correctly, Galen wrote about tasting his patients urine as a diagnostic tool; if it was too sweet - diabetes! I seem to remember lots of alchemists and later chemists using the taste test on many different compounds.

Most recently, on my flight back to Vienna a couple of weeks ago, I watched one of the nature programs on the in-flight entertainment system. Lo and behold, there was the naturalist/hero/tarzan-cross wrestling giant salamanders of all types. As a grand finale to the capture, he tasted the mucous coating the various species to determine the degree of toxicity (and spit it out, of course). This practice he pointed out, was not his invention, but taken from researchers in the rain forest of Amazonia who use the same kind of taste-test to determine the relative toxicities of the many kinds of poison-arrow frogs.

In the above context, tasting a little wash water dripping from a print to see if there is any slight taste of very, very dilute fixer present seems quite benign to me... I think I'm gonna try it! And spit out the water, of course. I'll let you know if I turn blue

Happy tasting!

Doremus

www.DoremusScudder.com

 

[Roger Cole]

I'll bet good money you don't turn blue.

But doing it repeatedly for years and years, that might be a different matter.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Actually ingested sodium thiosulfate is not metabolized and it is excreted unchanged in the urine and feces. So you can re-use it if you want...

Isn't urochrome useful for toning prints?