reasonableapproximation:

kontextmaschine:

realizing that one of the things that’s stuck in my head is the Nam-era military manual on jungle survival, that the way to test the poisonousness of an unknown food source is

1. rub it on your forearm
2. gently score your forearm with a knife, rub it in the cut
3. hold it in your folded elbow for 15min
4. hold it in the side of your cheek for 15min
5. chew it a while, hold in the side of your cheek for 15min
6. try swallowing some

Intuitively steps two and three seem backwards here, do you know what’s up with that? Is something really going to be fine to rub into a cut on your arm but not to hold in your elbow?

(I think the version of this I heard included waiting like two hours between steps, but I don’t remember it in any detail.)

Hm good point, I could be misremembering it, I’ll delete the original so only this addition remains to be circulated