Via The Motley Fool, comes this essential abstract from the scholarly journal Digestive Surgery:
Red Hot Chilli Consumption Is Harmful in Patients Operated for Anal Fissure - A Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Study
Pravin J. Gupta
Fine Morning Hospital and Research Center, Laxminagar, Nagpur, India
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A repairman came to fix something that had broken in my apartment a few months ago.
“Smells like Mexican food in here,” he said in an accusatory tone.
I should have said something like “And so what if it does?” Instead I said “I don’t think that can be. The only food that’s been made here this morning is toast.”
“Toast?!” he exclaimed. “Not unless you put some chili powder on it!”
I realized later that, perhaps not having a large repertoire of exotic smell associations to draw on, he might have inhaled a whiff of the tea I’d brewed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsang_souchong
and mistaken it–though there is no chili powder in it–for Mexican food.
In light of Dr. Gupta’s findings, I can see now why some might be made anxious by chili powder. Hopefully xenophobes are over-represented among those needing anal fissure operations.
Reminds me of Dr M Linstead’s “The Wounds of Capt Scot ‘Scottie’ Scott, Vol XXXIX: Internal, Colon; Vegetable; Invasive; Voluntary; Non-Self-Inflicted” (Prakash & Prakash, Dacca, 946)
Not easy to get hold of, rather like Scottie himself.