Highly dangerous trick - "smoking fingers"

[lajoswinkler]

This is quite incredible. eBay and Amazon sell kits for it, Youtube is filled with it, even about.com (where a supposed "PhD" says it glows in the dark and it's "probably white phosphorus" but then continues with stupidity) and Instructables have instructions for it. This is why I'm opening a thread, because it's so widespread that many of you will probably encounter it.

 

The trick is to cut away a striker pad from a matchbox, put it on a cold surface, red side down, and heat the cardboard part with a lighter flame. An oily deposit will form on the surface.

Next thing, you touch the oil and smear it between your fingers and they start to emit smoke. The audience, if they didn't see you touch the oil, think it's magic.

 

What is happening? You're getting poisoned, that's what.

Strikers (unlike matcheads, as the myth says) contain phosphorus. Red variety which is very stable at ordinary conditions. When you heat it, it vaporizes into gas and if that gas is condensed in absence of air, you'll get impure liquid white phosphorus.

Touching it is dangerous enough, but when combined with tar from the cardboard dry distillation (brownish smelly liquid), in which it is soluble, you get a recipe for an even better poisoning because it penetrates the skin.

If you've ever worked in a lab, you probably know how dangerous it is to wash away an organic poisonous substance you've accidentaly got on your skin - if you use something which dissolves it readily like rubbing alcohol. It carries the substance into your skin.

 

Searching the Internet for this crap, I found people reporting even acute injuries like blisters forming on their fingers. Not surprising. When war crimes called "dumping white phosphorus ammo on human targets" is used, it causes blisters on the skin, even if not ignited.

They also report lingering smell. That's residues still lodged in skin pores, reacting with air and producing poisonous lower oxides which smell like garlic.

 

This "trick" will absolutely, definitively cause some damage to your organs, most likely liver. If you're healthy as a horse, in most cases you won't notice anything, but repeated exposure will cause more and more damage. Usual cited lethal dose (orally, subdermally) is 0.1 g. Just because you don't approach 0.1 doesn't mean you're ok.

Doing this often as a party trick will cause chronic poisoning which will end up with bone necrosis. It used to happen with jaws back in the days when worker care was very poor. "Phossy jaw", people used to call it.

 

Don't do this, for the love of Jeb.

[JJJacksonTyler]

I agree, this is a very bad idea. Humans, unlike Kerbals - are neither green nor disposable.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Val
Removed inappropriate image

[Gaarst]

If people are stupid enough to try, they deserve it.

[tater]

A brief google shows it to be red phosphorus, not white.

[Dman979]

1 hour ago, tater said:

A brief google shows it to be red phosphorus, not white.

And another brief Google shows it to be white, not red.

It looks like it starts out red, and the heat changes the structure to white.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/ht/smokingfingers.htm

https://practicum.melscience.com/experiments/the-conversion-of-red-phosphorus-to-white-phosphorus.html

[lajoswinkler]

4 hours ago, tater said:

A brief google shows it to be red phosphorus, not white.

Strikers are a mixture of red allotrope, glass powder and glue to keep it all together. When you heat the red allotrope, it dissociates into gas and then condenses into white allotrope, as I've mentioned.

It's a very simple thing to do, although you get a very contaminated, dirty, brown-orange thing. Nevertheless, it is perfectly pure enough to horribly injure internal organs as well as kill. It's also flammable. Get enough on your fingers and it will spontaneously ignite.

[p1t1o]

14 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

This "trick" will absolutely, definitively cause some damage to your organs, most likely liver. If you're healthy as a horse, in most cases you won't notice anything, but repeated exposure will cause more and more damage. Usual cited lethal dose (orally, subdermally) is 0.1 g. Just because you don't approach 0.1 doesn't mean you're ok.

Just a quick note -  the lethal dose is probably 0.1g per kilogram [of bodyweight]

A quick check on RTECS (a widely respected repository of toxicological data) gives some figures agreeing with that. With liver damage occurring around 5mg/kg.

Edited December 14, 2016 by p1t1o