The other main affliction comes from swimming from sea urchin spines.The wader steps on animals and drives their sharp into his foot.The spines are brittle which makes removing them difficult.The pain comes more from the foreign object embedded in the foot than from the mild poison in the spines.Doctors will use a scalpel to incise them and tweezers to pull them out.
Villagers simply take a large stone to crush the spines arguing than the pain goes away quickly and that with time the crushed bits will work themselves out of the foot.Doctors suggest that pounding the foot with stone will only drive the spines deeper into the foot and perhaps cause a secondary infection.Both villagers and doctors agree that spines must be removed quickly.If the swimmer isn't carrying a scalpel with him and is far from a doctor,he may want to try a local method which,as many foreigners who have used it attest,seems to work without unpleasant aftereffects.The area should then be swabbed with mercurochrome and covered with a gauze pad.
One method to reduce the pain is to hollow out a large coconut and urinate into it.The foot is immersed in the urine and the uric acids counteract the poison.Obviously to make it more effective you get by with a little help from your friends.