Allan Blair, also known as the “Real Spider-Man,” is famous for his research and self-experimentation in the field of entomology and toxicology. Despite another entomologist already having completed a similar self-experiment 12 years earlier, Blair wanted to experience the effects of a bite from a black widow. Blair and his assistants made sure they had thoroughly pissed the female off by starving her for two weeks prior to the bite.He allowed the female black widow to bite him for 10 seconds (enough time to get all of its venom into his body). He noted that the bite felt like a needle and the burning began to intensify as time went on. The bite was so tiny that Blair couldn’t see it, but the area around the bite had grown pale and his entire finger turned red. The throbbing pain began to spread as his hand grew numb. As the toxins traveled through his lymphatic system, he experienced pain in his lymph nodes and various other parts of his body. The wound began to swell and Blair was brought to the hospital. The pain left him with an impaired ability to speak and breathe as he fell into a state of shock.At one point, he was given morphine to reduce the pain that lasted for three agonizing days. The suffering that Blair endured gave doctors most of the symptoms that regularly appear in black widow victims allowing them to more easily diagnose bite victims. The symptoms also gave doctors a glimpse into how the black widow’s toxins affect the body. Thanks to his suffering, skeptics who thought black widows weren’t dangerous got over their skepticism. Blair made a full recovery, but refused to partake in a second bite experiment to verify the results. Unfortunately, he also failed to exhibit any of the symptoms reported by Peter Parker following his encounter with a radioactive spider.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 23:24:19 +0000
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