Lab Safety 101 : Or how not to be Baldwin
this is not actually a lab safety course, please understand that by reading this you are by no means an expert and I’m not responsible for you doing something very stupid because you read a ‘lab safety’ about a dragon. anyway.
I will give Baldwin 2 passes. 1) He lives in a world full of magic and that apparently makes consequences not real or something, idk 2) OSHA (a U.S. workplace safety law) wasn’t enacted until 1970 something, although work safety laws had/have been in place in various forms for many many years so this can only excuse so much.
I am going to try and focus on the lab safety, and not get TOO much into how he can create living organisms or other weirdly animated things.
SO LETS TALK ABOUT THE OBVIOUS.
1) You should never ever put your face OVER a boiling vat of liquid, or touch the container holding the boiling liquid, both are obviously going to be VERY hot, and we have no way of knowing what the boiling temperature of this is. so like. god.
2) IF you must touch the boiling container, use tongs or other utensils designed for handling these things, or at least put on GLOVES YOU HEATHEN.
3) If you MUST stick your face above the boiling liquid, please wear safety goggles, or a respirator hood. but better yet DON’T STICK YOUR FACE OVER A VAT OF BOILING GOO.
4) the Bunsen burner was invented in like 1855 or 1860 or something, there is no reason to be using a cauldron of all things. There should be a station each for creating green, yellow, red, blue, purple, copper, silver, gold, gray, black, white, chartreuse, taupe, lemonade shit, ok, this should NOT be a ‘random’ process that is terrible.
Now moving on.
What is a ‘carrier’ you ask? well it’s a lot of things actually but in this case it’s any substrate that you can stick a drug into and then that thing will get the drug into YOU. bodies are cool and they don’t really like taking in foreign material, so sometimes you have to dip that pill in some sugar to make the cells go ‘oo ok!’ sugar is not a suitable substrate carrier that’s not the point. But what that ALSO means is that if you have a Carrier floating around, you have to be ESPECIALLY EXTRA AMAZINGLY CAREFUL because that thing is DESIGNED to get into you. Which means if it’s contaminated, unfinished, untreated, or untested, you could die. Literally, actually, no joke, die. And in some cases, that might be the EASY route. If the wrong thing gets inside you, certain chemicals can eat your bones. Or sensitize you so that your future reaction to something will be a slow agonizing death of several varieties.
Why do you care?
C L E A R L Y
there has to be a carrier being used in order to produce genes that change your genetic shit. Magic my ass you SCIENCE that shit.
So on TOP of not following the very ‘duh’ basic of WEAR GLOVES AND GOGGLES, Bladwin is working with HIGHLY VOLATILE INGREDIENTS WITHOUT A BARRIER. It has ALREADY mutated him, personally, himself. That is beyond words in terms of a ‘no no’ in lab safety.
In order meet most chemical safety requirements, information about the identities and hazards of the chemicals must be available and understandable to workers, which it is CLEARLY not. ‘random’ my ass. The training for employees (which I’m saying is us/our dragons coming to visit) MUST also include information on the hazards of the chemicals in the area, what you need to do to protect yourself from those chemicals, AND how to treat cases of exposure when they DO happen.
His boiling vat of mysterious liquid is not under a fume hood or any other means of safety equipment meant for ‘I’m gonna boil a lot of stuff that has chemicals that can alter the structure of your genetic make up’, and that means that not only is it dangerous for him, it’s dangerous for anyone around him.
SPEAKING OF THE THINGS AROUND HIM-
they’re all contaminated. every surface, every nook, every cranny- all of it is unclean. Why? Well first of all this is just gunk boiling in an open room, and second of all his tiny shelf is made of wood, holds pillows, books, and pearls which are all very porous materials and hard if not impossible to sterilize
He has MONEY up there. this man is passing around currency that is coated in GOD KNOWS WHAT and it can do GOD KNOWS WHAT TO YOU. It is an honest to god miracle that no one has died. oh wait.
I guess they have.
I know canon lore says it’s bits of familiars not the whole thing but I don’t care, baldwin clearly cares for no life not even his own if you want to melt the mamertee, that’s on your own conscience
there has to be even more to this but these are the ones I’m leaving it at.
remember kids, don’t be baldwin or you’ll die
