Montreal Gazette - Fig leaves and sunshine can be painful

Chemistry professor Joe Schwarcz: "Now, about this business of Adam and Eve wearing fig leaves for the sake of modesty. Not a very clever choice. Fig leaves and sunshine, which one assumes would have been plentiful in the Garden of Eden, can make for a pretty wicked case of "phytophotodermatitis." Reddening of the skin, painful blisters and hyperpigmentation are not exactly welcome symptoms, especially in the rather sensitive parts of the anatomy that were to be hidden from view by the fig leaves. Hidden from whom, though? No one else was around, and if Adam and Eve were to go on "begatting," one assumes they would have had to overcome their shyness. But I digress…"