Day 102 Dalaguete, Cebu

Worked the PM shift in the ER today. It was pretty routine with not much going on except for one particular case where a child (she was probably between 5-7) came in with a pretty nasty burn on her leg. Other than it being a pretty bad burn was that the mother and father had rubbed chili pepper leaves over the burn and the child wasn't crying. I asked Tim why they did that and she said the mountain people use chili leaves as home remedies but she wasn't sure if it actually worked. I looked up the effect of chili leaves being used as a remedy for pain and found an interesting article explaining how the capsaicin in the chili binds to pain receptors blocking out the actual signaling in the body. It wasn't the most reputable site but it does make me think there's some science behind remedies that persist over generations. Strangely enough, the girl didn't cry until the wound was being cleansed -- perhaps washing away the capsaicin opened up those pain receptors again. Because the patient was a small child and in severe pain, I just observed as the nurses and doctor performed wound care. 

The type of chili plant the leaves were most
likely taken from.