We have a visitor at the present time escaping the deep freeze of a Victorian winter. Just as small children are an excellent excuse to go to the zoo, a visitor is an excellent excuse to go to the croc farm and to head out whale watching. Having inflicted these activities on our guest we gave him the choice of what to do next. His response was to swim at Cable Beach.
So off we went to Cable Beach and found the beach closed. Someone had detected the presence of Irukandji … the hard way. This is much more of a wet season phenomenon so they were extremely unlucky.
Back in the days when the pearling was done by men in old fashioned diving helmets most of their skin was well covered but from time to time a diver would be stung by nobody knew quite what leading to extreme pain, vomiting and a profound sense of dread and depression.
On the opposite side of the continent, north of Cairns, beach goers were similarly affected in the summer months. This was in the ancestral land of the Irukandji People and in 1952 Hugo Flecker gave it the name Irukandji Syndrome. What caused it was a puzzle. Subsequently Dr Jack Barnes, a general medical practitioner, thought he had the answer in a casserole dish, a tiny jellyfish retrieved from the waters of Palm Cove.
Jack would have been familiar with Koch’s Postulates published in 1890 when medicine was coming to grips with which agent caused which disease. The third postulate requires that the supposed agent cause the appropriate disease when a healthy organism is exposed to it. The good doctor’s activities had drawn a crowd so right there and then, on the beach, he called for volunteers to make contact with the jelly fish.
Enthusiasm was limited. In the end Jack himself, his 10 year old son Nick and a Lifesaver named Charles “Chilla” Ross elected to be stung. There is some delay before the onset of stomach cramps, vomiting and severe pain but it wasn’t long before Koch’s postulate was satisfied. Jack drove into town to obtain medical care for the trio from his colleagues. It was December 1961, medical experiments are done a little differently these days – now you have to sign a consent form first.
Quod erat demonstrandum and the jellyfish was named Carukia barnesi, in honour of 10 year old Nick I hope. It has subsequently been joined by perhaps as many as 15 more similar species under the catch all name of Irukandji Jellyfishes.
They are tiny (about the size of a finger nail) and transparent. They have 4 tentacles, the stinging organs (nematocysts) are found on the tentacles and around the bell. The toxin is extremely potent. In 2020 some 23 people were stung in the vicinity of Palm Island, Queensland. Seven required hospitalisation, none died but deaths have occasionally been reported.
Many of the nematocysts at the site of a fresh sting are not discharged. Rinsing them off seems like a good idea. There is a lively and unresolved debate as to whether this should be with vinegar or not but your mother was right – don’t rub it.
I have not photographed Irukandji nor am I rushing off to Cable Beach to try and catch one but I have scoured the internet and shamelessly filched a couple of photos …
bobmcgee 