# We don't breath through our skin, so why did that girl in \_Goldfinger\_  die? Fiction?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-dont-breath-through-our-skin-so-why-did-that-girl-in-_goldfinger_-die-fiction/620516>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 1, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-dont-breath-through-our-skin-so-why-did-that-girl-in-_goldfinger_-die-fiction/620516 "2012-05-01T15:27:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-dont-breath-through-our-skin-so-why-did-that-girl-in-_goldfinger_-die-fiction/620516/21 "2012-05-01T23:24:29Z")

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> [@Machine\_Elf](#):
>
> Death by heatstroke assumes particular ambient conditions. I’ll wager that in 70 degrees F with low humidity, a naked person whose entire skin were coated with paint would not overheat. True, you can’t sweat anymore, but…you’re naked, and it’s 70F. In addition, you actually lose a significant amount of heat via respiration, since your respiratory tract has to fully humidify all that air, resulting in some evaporative cooling just by the act of breathing.
> 
> It’s fair to say though that clogging all of your pores with paint certainly would diminish your capacity to safely handle higher ambient temps.

This happened in Miami Beach, the Fontainebleau to be exact, so we can safely say there was not low humidity. It’s been a long time since I read the book, but I thought it said something about closing pores, and how even a few open would be okay.

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-dont-breath-through-our-skin-so-why-did-that-girl-in-_goldfinger_-die-fiction/620516/22 "2012-05-01T23:32:02Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Fleming wrote like a guy having a conversation in a bar – he picked up random bits of trivia, true and otherwise, and spoke authoritatively without checking on his topic. So you end up with all sorts of nonsense and almost-but-not-quite-right “facts” promulgated by the Bond books, such as that male elephants, when they go into heat, get a mucous buildup behind the ears that drives them inssane if it’s not scraped off\*, or that Sumo wrestlers practice manipulating their testicles back into their body so they can avoid getting hit in them, or many of his odd little ideas about food and drink, …or that you can suffer skin suffocation" if you’re a gold-covered cabaret dancer. It’s another of Flemings entertaining but untrue bar rumors.

However Fleming came up with some of his bizarre ideas as part of his work for intelligence during the war. Operation Mincemeat, about the successful plan to plant fake papers on a body that the Germans would get sent, lists a bunch.

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**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-dont-breath-through-our-skin-so-why-did-that-girl-in-_goldfinger_-die-fiction/620516/23 "2012-05-02T00:23:35Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Fleming wrote like a guy having a conversation in a bar

Ah yes, Floyd Fleming, the long-lost uncle of Cliff Claven.

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