Date and Time: 2016.03.30, 04:30pm
Subject: Safety Protocol
Name: Dragonsblood or Dragon's Blood
Flash point: SOS - 275F, ULTRA - 238F, EXTREME - 200F
Insoluble in water
Incompatible materials: Acids, Alkalis, Strong oxidizing agents
Hazardous decomposition/byproducts: Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide, Fumes
Hazardous statements from MSDS:
- May be irritating to eyes
- May be irritating to skin in raw form
- May be irritating if inhaled at close proximity
- May be harmful if swallowed
Safety Precautions:
- wear gloves
- work in ventilated area (respiratory protection and mechanical ventilation not required, anywhere in lab is fine)
- wear goggles if there is a risk of eye contact
- do not apply heat above 190F, do not expose to open flame
Name: Turpentine
Flash point: 91F
Insoluble in water
Avoid storage with exposure to air
Incompatibility: Acids, strong oxidizing agents, strong bases, iodine pentafluoroethylene
Hazardous decomposition/byproducts: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and water
Hazardous statements from MSDS:
- Is irritating and damaging to eyes. Can cause conjunctivitis or corneal burns. Can irritate eyes.
- Can cause dermatitis or chemical burns.
- Vapors or mist are irritating and can produce dizziness, headaches, vertigo, chest pain, bronchitis, pulmonary edema, cyanosis, narcosis, accelerated pulse.
- Ingestion can produce nausea, serious illness, death if between 4-6 oz
Safety Precautiions:
- use only under vent hood
- wear gloves
- wear goggles
- keep away from heat
Subject: Experiments
- Prepare and keep dragonsblood
- as per the manuscript instructions (29v.6), mix dragonsblood with eau de vie and keep in a tightly sealed container
- contrary to the manuscript instructions, mix dragonsblood with eau de vie and keep in a loosely sealed container
- consistent with manuscript instructions, which suggest applying turpentine on top of dragonsblood used as paint, mix dragonsblood with turpentine
- Apply dragonsblood to a wound
- the manuscript recommends applying dragonsblood to the forehead of a person with a nosebleed (38v.2), so apply ground dragonsblood to a piece of meat with a vein, first on an area with no blood, and then directly on the blood, to observe any reactions
- Use dragonsblood to dye fabric
- 38v.2 says dragonsblood can be used as a dye, so apply it to wool, silk, and linen in its various solvents
- test it at various intervals of time, since 29v.6 says that it gets better over time. use at 1 week intervals, starting with 1 week and continuing until at least week 3.
Subject: Others on Dragonsblood
Name: Robin Reich
Date and Time: 2016.03.28, 11:30am
Subject: Setup of Experiments
As described above, I mixed dragonsblood with a variety of solvents to be kept for later use. I ground 13 grams of dragonsblood in the metal mortar and pestle and mixed it with an equal weight of anise liquor (idoniko) and sealed this tightly in a mason jar. I then did the same again and deposited it in a beaker loosely covered in plastic. Realizing that the copper in the mortar and pestle could have reacted with the dragonsblood, I ground another 13 grams, divided it into three beakers, and mixed it with equal portions by weight of water, anise liquor, and turpentine. I covered these with plastic.
Name: Robin Reich
Date and Time: 2016.04.04, 10:20am
Subject: Testing color at one week
The manuscript says that the quality of the color improves the longer it sits, so I want to do test strips of dyes at different time intervals. I am going to dip 1"x4" strips of jute in each solution, leave them there for 30min, and rinse. Hopefully, this will create a baseline comparison between the different colors and give a sense of how the different solvents impact the quality of the color. I am not attempting to recreate the historical dying method here, I really just want to sample the color.
Time: 5:00pm
After looking around at the fabric in the lab, I ended up cutting 1"x6" strips of unbleached white cotton that was left over from a project last semester. I labeled each strip directly with permanent marker, dipped each strip into one of the beakers of dragonsblood solution (so that each strip was submerged by about 1/4", and then let them sit for 30 minutes. When the timer was up, I rinsed off the dragonsblood solution in a beaker of tap water and hung them up to dry in the vent hood, using binder clips to hang them from the metal rack.
None of the cotton strips took on a great deal of color. The turpentine solution resulted in the most saturated color, the idoniko solutions were all within a range of slightly less saturated, and the water solution took on no discernable tint. The color tinting was also very splotchy - each strip had lighter and darker spots. Based on this, I decided to change the setup of the experiment slightly. My initial plan was to stain strips of fabric at one week intervals for the remainder of the semester, but since the cotton took on so little color, I want to see whether the color of each solution will be more discernable after a week of soaking in the solution. My one concern with this setup is that the turpentine could potentially degrade the cotton after a week - if that does happen, it will help me understand the limitations of that solution, but it may also be difficult to judge the efficacy of the color. I took 5 fresh cotton strips, marked them as before, and sealed them into the beakers, with each strip sitting about 1/2" submerged in solution. I also tried to break up and incorporate the dragonsblood solids still sitting in the idoniko and water solutions, but the water solution remained insoluble and the idoniko solids, which had formed into hockey pucks, I could do little more than turn them over and break them into a few smaller pieces.
A week after first mixing the solutions, the solubility of the dragonsblood in each solvent is really interesting to see. Based on the MSDS for dragonsblood, I knew that it isn't water soluble, but the extent to which it isn't is fascinating - it's hydrophobic and essentially does not get wet. After a week of sitting in water, the dragonsblood is just barely wet and sits on the surface. Considering that older recipes like the trotula and Hildegard von Bingen ones instruct mixing dragonsblood in water, one of my goals at the moment is to see what impact the dragonsblood does actually have on water. It may be worth litmus testing the water after a few weeks. The fact that the dragonsblood isn't water soluble may also explain why its only barely soluble in alcohol, and forms these strange solid masses at the bottom of the idoniko solutions. But the color itself seems to be alcohol soluble because the idoniko solution is taking on color. The manuscript recipe doesn't indicate whether the alcohol solution should be strained after some period of time, so tracking the development of the color in this solution could help to clarify how the manuscript intended for this solution to be used. In contrast with the other two, the turpentine completely dissolved the dragonsblood, and the color of the solution is remarkably different - both darker and more opaque. This solution, the manuscript instructs, should be used to augment gold leaf. How do I take into account the fact that the dragonsblood itself will be applied directly to the gold, as opposed to just a dragonsblood extract. The solubility of the dragonsblood is one aspect of its materiality that I think will ultimately be really revealing with respect to how it was used.
Dragonsblood in idoniko, solidified into a puck:
Dragonsblood in turpentine:
Name: Robin Reich
Date and Time: 2016.04.11, 10:38am
Subject: Results of 30-minute and 1-week stains
30-minute stains:
When I came into the lab, I removed the 30-minute stains that I had hung up to dry last week. The color has developed considerably. When the stains were wet, it was difficult to see any color or any difference in color between them - dry, the colors are still faint, but it is easy to compare them.
Before (wet stains):
After (dry stains):
In the after image, the strips are arranged, from left to right: copper-ground dragonsblood in idoniko (kept with a perforated cover), copper-ground dragonsblood in idoniko (kept tightly sealed), marble-ground dragonsblood in tap water, marble-ground dragonsblood in idoniko, and marble-ground dragonsblood in turpentine.
Observations:
- The most saturated color is the copper-ground in idoniko kept tightly sealed. This is consistent with the manuscript's instructions, which say to keep the dragonsblood tightly sealed in eau de vie. However, this solution also has twice the amount of both dragonsblood and solvent than the other contianers, so its greater saturation could be due to greater volume of stain. The color of the stain after a 30 minute soak is a pale pink with a slightly orange tint, maybe described as a peach or dusty rose color.
- The next most saturated stain is the copper-ground in idoniko kept with a perforated lid. This one is very slightly lighter, and so the fact that it was sitting in half the volume of solution suggests that the volume made a negligible difference for this round of staining. Apart from the saturation, the color overall seems roughly the same.
- Slightly lighter than the two copper-ground samples is the marble-ground in idoniko. Here again the color is a light pink, a little less orange than the copper samples. The volume of solution for this one is the same as in the perforated lid sample, but it was stored in a smaller container.
- The marble-ground dragonsblood in turpentine looks substantially different from the idoniko solutions. It is a rusty color, more brown than red. It is fairly well saturated, but, like the others, faint. Unlike all the others, which still have a fairly pliable cotton texture, the cotton of this sample is very stiff.
- The marble-ground dragonsblood in tap water is incredibly faint - there is a small amount of very faintly saturated pink at the bottom where it was fully submerged in water, and there are speckles of dark red where grains of dragonsblood sat directly on the cotton, but otherwise the cotton is still largely white.
1-week stains:
I removed the strips from their solutions and deposited them into a beaker of tap water to rinse, as I did with the 30-minute stains.
It was immediately apparent that these colors were substantially more saturated than the 30-minute stains, but it was also notable that the strips had absorbed nearly all the water and idoniko, making those solutions dry almost to the point of powder, while the turpentine solution was still liquid and had reduced in volume considerably less. 
I rinsed each strip by dipping it in the water and scraping off the excess particles of dragonsblood with my (gloved) fingers. I then hung them up as before in the vent hood.
Initial observations, while the strips are still wet:
- All of the strips have a stripe of very darkly saturated color where the strip was folded over the lip of its vessel
- all of the strips were wet along their entire length, even though only the bottom 1/4-1/2" of cotton was sitting in the solution
- all the strips have 4 zones of color from the bottom up: a well-saturated shade at the bottom that corresponds to the length that was sitting directly in the solution; a lighter but still saturated to some degree portion where the strip was not directly touching the solution; a completely unsaturated or only very lightly saturated portion; and a stripe where the cotton was in contact with the lid.
- The color variations are much more apparent in this sample: the turpentine solution is fully brown, the idoniko solutions are orange-red (with a dark pink where they sat in the solution), and the water is light pink.
- One sample was clearly more saturated than all the others - the copper-ground dragonsblood in idoniko kept with a perforated lid. This is very interesting given that the manuscript specifically says to keep the dragonsblood solution tightly sealed. However, the manuscript says this in regard to keeping the solution, not using it, so the variation in color could be from cotton's exposure to air while staining, rather than the solution's exposure to air. Once the strips are dry, it will be more telling to note the difference between the colors of the sections of the cotton that were directly submerged in the solution.
Setup of next 1-week stain:
I am going to continue the process of week-long stains by performing at least one more round of staining. Just as before, I will submerge strips of cotton in the various solutions of dragonsblood for one week. However, because the strips soaked up most of the liquid from some of the solutions, I will be replenishing the solvent in the copper-ground in idoniko with perforated cover, marble-ground in idoniko, and marble-ground in water. The tightly-sealed sample still has enough liquid to do another round of stain, and the turpentine doesn't look depleted at all. I am setting up this experiment this afternoon and will check on it next Monday.
Name: Robin Reich
Date and Time: 2016.04.11 12:17pm
Subject: Dragonsblood and meat experiment
The manuscript recommends applying dragonsblood to the forehead of a person with a nosebleed to stop the blood. To see how dragonsblood reacts with flesh/blood, I am applying it to beef hearts. The choice of beef hearts was due to what was available at my local grocer - I was looking for a very bloody cut of meat.
I set up the experiment with the intention of best seeing how dragonsblood interacts with both flesh and blood, by drawing as much liquid as possible from two samples of meat to compare the different degrees of effectiveness. I took three sample of beef heart pieces, and thoroughly rubbed each with one of the following: finely ground dragonsblood (ground in the ceramic mortar and pestle), finely ground rock salt, or a combination of the two. Because the salt should draw out the moisture in the meat, it will amplify the extent of the reaction between the dragonsblood and the meat (if there is any). I lay all the samples on a plate and set a timer for 10 minutes.
Checked on them when the timer was up, and already there was a noticeable difference between the different samples. The dragonsblood-only sample was completely dry, the dragonsblood still visibly sitting on the surface. The salt-only sample was quite wet, and had a small amount of liquid sitting underneath it. The combination sample was slightly damp, but there was no liquid underneath. I set the timer for another 10 minutes.
Upper left: Just dragonsblood. Upper right: Dragonsblood and salt. Bottom: Just salt.
After 20 minutes from the start of the experiment, there was a clear difference between the dragonsblood, salt, and combination samples of meat. The dragonsblood-only sample was still completely dry, although the particles of dragonsblood were now less apparent than at the 10-minute mark. The salt-only sample was very wet, and sitting in a large amount of liquid. The combination sample was wetter than before, but still with very little liquid around it, and the dragonsblood solids were less apparent.
Top: Dragonsblood and salt. Left: Dragonsblood. Center: Plain. Bottom right: Salt.
Dragonsblood.
Combination.
Salt.
Plain.
It is clear from this experiment that dragonsblood could actually help stop a bleed by blocking the flow of liquid. Because it is hydrophobic, it is unclear whether the material is actually combining with the liquid, or if it forms a barrier. If I could mix the dragonsblood directly with a sample of blood, it would be possible to determine the exact interaction between the two, but this experiment seems to indicate that the dragonsblood is drying, rather than coagulating.
Name: Robin Reich
Date and time: 5/16/2016, 09:00AM
Subject: Staining Experiment results
Results from the staining experiment. 30 minute stains on the bottom row, 1 week stains in the middle, 2 week stains on the top. From left to right in each row: marble-ground dragonsblood in water, marble-ground in turpentine, marble ground in idoniko, copper-ground in idoniko (tightly sealed), copper-ground in idokico (with perforated lid.
The water samples are uniformly unsaturated - the only color transferred to these at all was above the water line, suggesting that it was mashed into the cloth by the plastic wrap used to seal the beaker. The turpentine samples have a much browner color and a tacky feel, likely due to the fact that the dragonsblood completely dissolved in the solution. This suggests that turpentine could have been responsible for the discoloration of dragonsblood, rather than the dragonsblood itself. Of the idoniko samples, the loosely-sealed copper-ground one has the most vibrant colors, suggesting that the copper added to the color somewhat and that in fact exposure to air improved the quality of the color, contrary to what the manuscript suggests. However, the other two idoniko stains are nearly as colorful, so the most important aspect of this is simply that alcohol is the best color transfer medium of the three solvents.
If I were to repeat this experiment, I would have more samples with perforated and tightly-sealed lids to investigate that distinction more, and I would place all of the samples in jars, since the plastic wrap may have transferred color on its own.