What a lovely way to burn

[Oudeis he/him]

Do you think feruchemical brass can be used to kill off an infection by simulating a fever? Deliberately burn yourself at 105 degrees for 45 minutes, kill off the infection, then stop tapping to return yourself instantly to normal. Anyone out there with legitimate medical knowledge wanna weigh in?

[Voidus]

I imagine it would depend on certain cognitive aspects, since feruchemy gives you some protection from the traits you tap. That protection may extend to the bacteria or virus causing the infection or it may not, I imagine it would have to do with how the Feruchemist perceives it.

[Oudeis he/him]

Well, presumably, if we can use

 

Words of Radiance spoilers

Kaladin as a model, no infection or bacteria will become resistant to the effects of your own feruchemy until that condition becomes something central to your own inner identity, presumably in an enormously defining way, not in a "man it feels like this cold will never go away" kind of way, more the kind of way that involves months of painful torture.

 

Further, I question that this "protection" is absolute. I need to find the quote again but I believe it was said that feruchemy will, to an extent, protect you from some of the effects. Wayne can tap enough weight that it should kill him and won't, but he'll still be moving around very slowly. Do we know, for sure, that there's no upper limit? If he'd been standing on the ground supporting his own weight on his own legs when he tapped all the weight like he did to destroy that building, do we know that wouldn't have been beyond the limits of what feruchemy can save you from? When he lay on the floor, tapped all that weight to fall through to avoid the explosion, didn't he release the weight as he was falling, so that he wouldn't suffer the energy passing into his body as all that weight smashed into the ground below him and suddenly stopped? I'm saying that we have no way to know that you simply categorically cannot be injured due to tapping a lot of some trait, and some reason to suspect that you can. Based on that, even if a virus did get some protection from being "part of you", that should just mean it will take more heat to kill it, not that it's immune to your own heat. Fevers work because it takes less heat to kill the virus than the person, so the window should still exist, it might just be higher.

 

And recall Sazed tapping tin that time to spy on the koloss. (I tried, and failed, to think of more words starting with T I could use in that sentence). His telescopic sight increased, but too much of it caused him vertigo. I'm simply mentioning this to point out that we know for a fact you don't get blanket immunity from your own feruchemy; there are and can always be downsides. For example, while you might be unable to literally burn yourself to death with brass, do you dehydrate faster? Do you sweat more, could you do yourself harm that way?

[Voidus]

Oh I'm quite sure it's not absolute, at the very least we know that hitting something while using enough Steel will still rip your arm off. Just thought I'd mention it as a possibility.
The raised window is a good point, I think that it's pretty likely that even were the bacteria/virus to gain added protection that you're right that there'd still be a point that would kill them.
Ultimately though it would depend on the infection, some bacteria can withstand way higher temperatures than we can.

[Oudeis he/him]

Oh certainly, I didn't mean to imply that this was a surefire way to kill off any infection. Just one option that would let you avoid a lot of sick time and some of the worst side effects of a fever, if you're both in control of the fever and gaining the slight feruchemical edge to it.

[Lord Tavash Shar]

I would like to note that it would actually be pretty useful to store that fever in some instances as its not always actually helping you get better.

I wonder..... If you were proficient enough could you store specific inflammation and not just general body heat?

[Oudeis he/him]

Almost definitely not. Copper can store specific memories and is so far the only canon metal to work that way. You cannot use gold to store the health of your lymph nodes and not your broken foot, you cannot tap pewter to get one stronger arm than the other.

[Lord Tavash Shar]

Almost definitely not. Copper can store specific memories and is so far the only canon metal to work that way. You cannot use gold to store the health of your lymph nodes and not your broken foot, you cannot tap pewter to get one stronger arm than the other.

First: We know that both Tin and Copper work that way. Allowing you to store very specific parts of a trait (Copper memories, Tin sense) so its possible that the other metals can do this and its just not common to think in those terms (The cognitive aspect of what you're thinking about doing matters a lot. I doubt anyone thinks of the health of specific parts of their body separately.)

 

Second: we know that Hoid is some how able to store and tap connections to specific planets and that he has used this to jury rig whole magic systems and act as an Auto translator.

While I agree that we should have seen this sort of thing out of Sazed if it was possible its worth note that he and most of the other keepers were scholars focused very hard on the use of copper.

Meaning that if this is possible it may be something that requires a specific 'Mindset' to what you're doing. Something as specific as "I'm storing my physical sight" versus "I'm storing my physical weight"

I'm not saying that you would even be able to convert them. If you store if as the physical heat of your hand it seems very likely that you will only be able to tap that heat for your hands much like copper or tin.

Edited February 10, 2015 by Lord Tavash Shar

[Oudeis he/him]

Eeeeeeh... I'm not willing to buy your interpretation of feruchemical tin. I just don't think the models match up. I think storing a specific memory would be analogous to storing a specific sight; i.e., you "store" and go blind for a short while, then later when you tap you suddenly experience the visual sensations of whatever happened before your eyes at the time you stored. To support this, I point out that you require different tinminds per sense, whereas you can store each individual memory all in one coppermind. ... Okay as I write this I realize I'm not sure where I got that from, I'm gonna look it up. I'm certain in Well of Ascension Sazed mentions having rings for each individual sense; I'm not sure he actually flat-out says it's required, or he just finds it neater to organize this way. I will return when I have quotes.

 

Speaking of, I had meant to return earlier when I found this quote, and it completely slipped my mind. My apologies.

 

 

PhantomMonstrosity

Can a pewter Feruchemist go all fiddler crab? Store a bunch of strength from one arm, tap it into the other?

Brandon Sanderson

So far, any Feruchemist we've seen has been required to enhance their entire body or make their entire body weaker.

 

Source.

 

I guess now we're going to debate the potential meanings of "has been required." I think you have to take more wiggle room than this quote leaves you to assume that it's as simple as "but if he'd thought he could, it would've been easy." As further evidence, I point out that Wayne has only one feruchemical power, which gets used a lot in his line of work. If he's not as good with feruchemical gold as Sazed was with feruchemical copper, he's gotta be close. And he points out that due to his broken arm, he can store no health whatsoever. If it were possible for someone an expert in their specific feruchemical metal to simply get his mind right to store specific health the way Sazed can store specific memories, Wayne would have been able to do it.

 

Further, I think we can reasonably assume that health is stored generally, not specifically. Otherwise, Wayne would have to have a couple of hundred goldminds. "This is the hand storeroom. Right side is right hand, left side is left hand. The first shelf is where I store the health of my hands not being shot, to tap when my hand gets shot. Second shelf is my hands not being burned. Third is cuts, fourth is bites, five is hand-cancer." He just stores general health and then it gets used as magical, impossible regenerative abilities. I'm honestly not entirely sure what point I was trying to make with this; something either you or I said made me think of it but now I can't think of what it was. But I think the point is a good one, even if it's non-germane, so I'm just gonna leave it.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Oudeis

[Kaymyth she/her]

I guess now we're going to debate the potential meanings of "has been required." I think you have to take more wiggle room than this quote leaves you to assume that it's as simple as "but if he'd thought he could, it would've been easy." As further evidence, I point out that Wayne has only one feruchemical power, which gets used a lot in his line of work. If he's not as good with feruchemical gold as Sazed was with feruchemical copper, he's gotta be close. And he points out that due to his broken arm, he can store no health whatsoever. If it were possible for someone an expert in their specific feruchemical metal to simply get his mind right to store specific health the way Sazed can store specific memories, Wayne would have been able to do it.

 

 

Just a bit of a nitpick, but the actual issue with Wayne storing health with his broken arm was that he'd heal slower while storing, and then tapping later would just bring him back up to par.  It wasn't that he couldn't, just that there was no point, because it'd all come out even in the end.

[Lord Tavash Shar]

Your right in that I read that WoB not that they cannot but that there is a trick or understanding required for it to work that makes it difficult. Reminds me of another WoB I read that notes that Hemalurgy is sort of a Universal power that anyone on any world can use if they figure out the trick and that I can Store ANYTHING that counts as an attribute including things like Elantrian connection to there world and Connection to the Dor.
I wonder what the upper limits on things feruchemy can store are.....

[Oudeis he/him]

Just a bit of a nitpick, but the actual issue with Wayne storing health with his broken arm was that he'd heal slower while storing, and then tapping later would just bring him back up to par.  It wasn't that he couldn't, just that there was no point, because it'd all come out even in the end.

 

Ah. This is what made me add the following paragraph, but I forgot why so I never went back and edited to make the connection more clear. Thank you for pointing it out. What I intended to convey way, Wayne cannot store the health of his foot while his arm heals at a normal pace. Wayne is as great an expert at his metal as you're pretty well like to find. If he can't do something that every keeper was able to do easily with copper, I think we have to concede that it was a trait of copper, not a trait of "people with a lot of practice in one specific metal".

 

For the people out there who do think Sazed could store specific memories only because he'd practiced or gotten the right trick to copper, what exactly do you think he stored while he was practicing, before he was able to do it so specifically?

[natc]

Ah. This is what made me add the following paragraph, but I forgot why so I never went back and edited to make the connection more clear. Thank you for pointing it out. What I intended to convey way, Wayne cannot store the health of his foot while his arm heals at a normal pace. Wayne is as great an expert at his metal as you're pretty well like to find. If he can't do something that every keeper was able to do easily with copper, I think we have to concede that it was a trait of copper, not a trait of "people with a lot of practice in one specific metal".

For the people out there who do think Sazed could store specific memories only because he'd practiced or gotten the right trick to copper, what exactly do you think he stored while he was practicing, before he was able to do it so specifically?

The value of Pi?

[Lord Tavash Shar]

Random thought's or maybe the memories he was making Right That moment. There are a lot of potential ways that question can be answered that would work and do not disprove my idea. Especially as at this point Feruchemy is common enough knowledge that people would have pre existing ideas of how it works and there by a pre disposition to use it that way.

Think about it. You know a kid has pewter Ferucemy but his whole body does not deflate (Just the foot you cannot see) Are you going to look him over to carefully? No your going to assume he is not doing it right and try to describe the "Corect" Feel so he can get it. That feeling how ever is for a trait across your WHOLE body. Not just a small section.

And on the subject of metal minds:
/Quote

INTERVIEW: Sep, 2012

Cosmere Q&A - 17th Shard (Verbatim)

READERAT2046

Can a Feruchemist store an attribute in a metalmind that someone else has already stored in and if so, do the charges affect each other in any way?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, but the charges are just stored in separate pieces of the metal, and don't really influence one another.

If that can be done with some one else's metal mind of the same type then there should be a way to seperate out your own charges with enough practice and control.

 

Edited February 13, 2015 by Lord Tavash Shar

[Oudeis he/him]

...Huh? You're talking about one feruchemist training another, and forcing him to do feruchemy wrong based on faulty assumuptions? You think the default of pewter feruchemy is to let you weaken or strengthen specific bits of your body, but that somehow lost in time people decided to ignore that and start only using it for the full body, and that every since people have been instinctively using it correctly to focus on parts of the body but that in 100% of cases, the teachers are so utterly terrible at teaching that they successfully trick/force their students to learn the wrong way to use feruchemy, unnaturally restricting their abilities? And that the student himself will under no circumstance say, "Okay but, I can feel I've now got a reserve, so I must've done something right, also I fell over just now when my foot could no longer support my weight, so I know you're telling me I'm doing it wrong but you should really look at my foot."

 

In a world where Wax manages to invent a steelbubble when he himself admits it shouldn't be possible, in a world where a thousand years of repressed exploratory urge and suddenly unleashed on a magic that hasn't been available to the common people until right now, in a world where God himself is a feruchemist and within his first hour of divinity he's written a letter to his buddy saying, "Hey, here's some information on the metallic arts," I find it unlikely in the extreme that the various byzantine machinations your theory requires before it's even plausible, ignoring the fact that the best support you've been able to garner for it is "not totally proven false," all happen to be true.

 

That said, I'm never going to tell anyone to stop believing something about a fantasy book that they wish to believe. I'm simply pointing out that, outside of your headcanon, it's extremely unlikely to be the actual case.

[ccstat he/him]

To weigh in on the original question:

Do you think feruchemical brass can be used to kill off an infection by simulating a fever? Deliberately burn yourself at 105 degrees for 45 minutes, kill off the infection, then stop tapping to return yourself instantly to normal. Anyone out there with legitimate medical knowledge wanna weigh in?

 

There is a possible benefit, but probably not as dramatic as you are hoping (or at least only useful in certain cases). In general, fevers function not to directly kill bacteria but to slow down their growth so that your immune system has time to catch up. So I suspect that the proposed 45-minute scenario would probably be insufficient unless timed exquisitely at an early stage of infection.

 

While it is true what Lord Tavash Shar said above, that fevers are not necessarily helpful in every instance where they occur, your body is pretty good at deciding when it needs one, and how high to push it. There would be limited occasions when a feruchemist would know they needed to combat an infection with a fever before their immune system figured it out.

On the other hand, as has been discussed already, there appear to be at least some mechanisms in place to protect yourself from the effects of your own feruchemy. The major reason that fevers are so tightly regulated physiologically is that they can do harm by themselves. If you really can crank up the heat an extra 5 degrees with no ill effects to you, a feruchemist with a mild fever could very plausibly increase her temperature to high fever range to enhance the benefit / shorten the duration.  Extending that to a serious infection where the body is fevered as far as it will go to try to get an advantage over the bug, artificially enhancing the fever with feruchemy (without further harming the patient) would be helpful for sure.

 

In fact, in that last scenario, if the feruchemist could store the natural fever to reduce the harmful effects in her body while at the same time tapping heat to create an artificial fever (from which she would be magically protected), there would be incredible benefits ranging from "I-don't-feel-so-Rusting-awful-now" to "Thank-Harmony-I-didn't-die-from-malaria". For that to be possible, though, we have to assume a certain level of protection from your own feruchemy, and that is clearly a topic of some debate.

 

Good, thought, though! I love the various medicinal magic ideas that pop up here.

[Kaymyth she/her]

And on the subject of metal minds:

/Quote

INTERVIEW: Sep, 2012

Cosmere Q&A - 17th Shard (Verbatim)

READERAT2046

Can a Feruchemist store an attribute in a metalmind that someone else has already stored in and if so, do the charges affect each other in any way?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, but the charges are just stored in separate pieces of the metal, and don't really influence one another.

If that can be done with some one else's metal mind of the same type then there should be a way to seperate out your own charges with enough practice and control.

 

 

I would argue that these are, in fact, completely different concepts.  Think of a piece of metal as a thumb drive that can store specific information.  You can only store information on "Strength" on a pewtermind.  You can't specify what kind of strength or what body part, it's just Strength.

 

However, another Feruchmist can use the same flash drive.  But everyone has automatic password-protection on their data/attribute, so while they can take up space on your metalmind, you can't access their data and they can't access yours.  But the metal itself can only hold so much data, so you wind up with the equivalent of hard drive partitions.

 

...there might be some technological mixed metaphors in there, but I think I got the core of the idea.

[Oudeis he/him]

Thank you, ccstat! It's too bad that the medical application isn't all I'd hoped, but it's nice to know the science behind it.

 

I do have a follow-up question. You mention that it would only be effective if you could somehow detect the early stages of infection; what if you use it prophylactically? Take a five hour plane ride, guy on public transportation sneezes on you, your significant other gets the flu. Every time something happens where it's likely you just caught something, you go ahead and burn yourself a decent fever for an hour. Maybe only one in ten times were you actually gonna catch something, but you've got plenty of heat from last summer where you wore your brassminds instead of turning on the AC. Do you think such a regimen would reduce how often you actually get sick?

 

I also have a further question about fevers. How does your body regulate the temperature? Does it somehow check my own temperature and reduce the heat when it gets to the right temp, or does my body check things like infections and determine: Put x energy into a fever for z period of time? What I'm really asking is this. If I feel a fever coming on and tap brass, will my body notice that my heat has increased, and therefore subside its own fever, or will it still increase my temperature because it only knows that regardless of my body's actual temperature, when I've got an infection it needs to make me hotter?

 

I have a whole new section of questions to add to my Questions for Mr. Sanderson list.

[ccstat he/him]

Good questions! Fever is established by changing the body's thermostat toward a higher-than-usual target temperature, not by a "stoke up the furnace for an hour" mechanism. So if you wrap up in an electric blanket to warm yourself, your body will do less work in raising your temperature but will still reach the same set point.

(Interestingly, exothermic animals like reptiles can have fever reactions too! Their thermostat gets set higher, making them seek out warmer environments to raise their internal temperature.)

How feruchemy works into those feedback loops is unclear, but I suspect it would work similar to ordinary external heating processes like sitting by a fire or drinking something hot.

As far as the prophylactic brass tapping, my guess is that it would not do very much, but it is hard to be sure. This review (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16613288) discusses the evidence for and against fever being beneficial on various situations (infection, cancer, stroke, etc.) They conclude that "The role of fever for the recovery from low risk infections is marginal at best" and that our modern use of antibiotics in serious infections masks any benefit of fever there.

If your brass minds are really full, I wouldn't discourage you from trying it, but if walking around with a fake fever is uncomfortable you may not be getting much benefit in trade.

Edited February 13, 2015 by ccstat

[Oudeis he/him]

That was fascinating, well-cited, informative, and interesting. I only regret I'm only allowed to upvote it once. I wish more people would disprove my crazy theories so well, with such concrete facts and well-supported arguments, not to mention your friendly and civil tone.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

That was fascinating, well-cited, informative, and interesting. I only regret I'm only allowed to upvote it once.

 

I got you covered