Yes, there is another burn remedy, one that I experienced. Rather than
retell the story, I'll provide a short story I've written about the event
(but never sold).
A Folk Medicine Mystery
I'm looking for answers to a folk medicine mystery that has
perplexed me for almost 50 years. I've discussed it with many acquaintances
over the years, but no one has an explanation for its mysterious
effectiveness. Only one person out of the hundreds who have heard this story
could relate a similar occurrence.
It is, by any stretch of the imagination, an incredible yet highly effective
cure for serious burns. However, it is so far outside the realm of modern
medicine that it sounds like voodoo. But believe me, it works. I hope some
expert in folk medicine, or a mainstream burn expert can explain this
phenomenon.
At a recent barbecue, host Bradley was manning the big grills
when he badly burned his left hand. He danced in pain for a few minutes,
swearing several choice phrases. Then he started applying ice and butter to
the burn.
I went over, and told him to put his hand back over the sizzling hot grill.
"It'll take the pain away," I said. He looked at me like I was crazy.
"No, it will, I swear," I said. He was swabbing butter onto his
hand. "I don't doubt that what you're saying is true," he said, "but the
last thing I want to do is stick my hand back in the fire."
Then I told him this story:
Back in the 1950s, when I was a teenager, I worked summers at
my father's newspaper plant in Suffolk, Virginia. This one particular
summer I was a printer's devil, an apprentice assistant learning how to make
up the old-fashioned lead type pages used in that era.
Each day I would pack a can of soup and a sandwich to work with me, and when
lunch time rolled around, I'd go into the stereotype department of the
newspaper to heat up my soup. I'd do it by putting it in a pan atop the
molten lead pot, where the metal used to make the newspaper plates was kept
a liquid at 650 degrees. It would boil the soup in less than 30 seconds, so
it was quite effective.
This particular day, I was washing my hands before eating.
While doing so, I was chatting with the two pressmen who ran the press each
afternoon, Jonas Barrett and Willie Moore. They also ran the adjacent
stereotype department, where the cardboard mats imprinted with each page
were transformed into lead plates to be mounted on the press. The mat was
inserted into a casting mold, and the red-hot lead was pumped into the mold
to form the lead page plate.
After the plate is cast, it sits in the mold for a few minutes
while the lead cools about 100 degrees and hardens. Then it is taken from
the mold, and sent through a trimming machine that prepares it for the
press. The trip through the trimming machine takes less than 30 seconds, so
the plate is still extremely hot when it exits the machine. It still must
be handled with heat-resistant gloves.
The sink where I was washing my hands was next to the trimming
machine. There was a smoldering hot page plate, fresh from the machine,
sitting there cooling. I leaned over and placed my hand directly onto the
hot plate. I had just washed and dried my hands, but they were still damp.
A burst of steam boiled up from between my fingers. Instantly,
I could smell my skin burning.
I screamed in pain, and looked at my hand. My skin was ashen
gray from my fingertips to the edge of my palms. I was in agony.
Jonas Barrett ran across the room and grabbed me by the arm,
practically picking me off the floor as he dragged me toward the six-foot
wide metal pot. There, I struggled vainly as he forced my hand down to
within two inches of the smoking molten lead. I couldn't believe what he
was doing. The pain was unbearable.
"It'll take the heat away," he said, as I struggled to break
free from his grasp. The pain was searing. "It'll take the heat out," he
said, over and over again. I made eye contact with him, and started to
relax a little.
Then I noticed the pain was easing. It didn't hurt quite as
bad. Then, quickly, the pain disappeared. It stopped hurting altogether.
It had been less than 90 seconds. I looked at my hand. It was still
grayish on the surface, but a healthy pink color showed through the skin.
It never blistered, it never peeled, and it never hurt again
from that moment on. I never applied any medicine to the burn, I didn't go
to a doctor. There was no need to do either. My hand felt perfectly normal
less than five minutes after the incident. I ate my lunch, then went back
to work for the full afternoon shift, with little discomfort. I couldn't
believe it then, and I still can't believe it.
In the intervening years, I have suffered several other serious
burns - from grabbing a red-hot exhaust pipe on my home heater, from a
splash of boiling oil, from scalding water. Each time, I bit my lip and put
my hand back into the heat, either over the stove or in steaming hot water.
Each time, the pain quickly disappeared. This mysterious burn remedy has
worked every time.
I have taught this technique to others, those few brave souls
willing to believe me, and they have used it with equal success. A friend
of mine who is an at-home jeweler used it after suffering a nasty burn, and
he now swears by it, and has taught it to other jewelers in Taxco, Mexico.
I have discussed this with hundreds of people, but only one said
she had heard anything like it. She witnessed the incident as a child. She
saw her grandfather, working on the family stove when it exploded in a ball
of flame, thrust his badly burned hand and arm into a pot of water boiling
on top of the stove to take away the pain.
She, like Jonas Barrett, was African-American. Perhaps this is
a clue to the source of this folk medicine remedy.
In the intervening years I've devoted numerous hours thinking
about this incident, and trying to analyze this miraculously improbable burn
remedy. I believe the answer somehow lies in the release of the shock of
the burn. By heating the surrounding flesh to near-burn intensity, the
borderline between the burn and the surrounding flesh is erased, and this
release somehow nullifies the pain. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to
it.
Over the years, I have wanted to present this strange but true
story to the public to seek answers, and to let others know of its
effectiveness. Hopefully, someone can provide the proper answers to this
medical mystery.
(About the author: Bill Missett is a retired U.S. daily newspaper editor,
living the life of Riley in a small fishing village in Southern Mexico famed
for its big surf and big fish.)
----- Original Message -----
From: "sol" <sol...@sweetwaterhsa.com>
To: <silver-list@eskimo.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: CS>CS gel <other burn remedies>
What else offers this healing for burns? Straight lavender essential oil,
applied liberally to a burn will do the same thing--no evidence of burn
the next day (or even in a couple hours) and it has the added benefit of
stopping the pain almost immediately. Depending on the severity of a
burn, I've had the same results from lavender oil diluted in apricot oil.
The only time it took a while to stop the pain was when I branded my thumb
on the lid handle of a roaster fresh from a 400 degree oven. In that case
it took about 20 -30 min to stop the pain. Had a tiny bit of tenderness
from that one for a few days, and it took a while for the deep brand line
to grow out.
Lavender essential oil does the same trick for bites and bruises.
sol
Lisa Shepherd wrote:
I also had an experience when frying chicken at home one time, the
grease, bubbling and very hot, splashed when a piece of chicken i was
turning slipped from the tongs i used to turn them with, this splashed
over my entire hand, even the tender backside, both cases i used bleach
immediatly, didnt kill the pain, but i had NO EVIDENCE of a burn the next
day, both cases would have scarred horribly had i not used bleach. I
witnessed what grease burns untended will do, i saw a woman come into the
emergency room once with severe grease burns, holding her hand, or the
remains of it, in a tub of water, white skin floating all around it, i
still remember hearing her screams in the waiting room, they scraped her
hand to remove the majority of the burn.
--
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