Medicine: Cold for Burns

Los Angeles’ Dr. Alexander G. Shulman is a good surgeon but a poor chef; nine years ago, trying his hand at cooking, he only succeeded in burning it badly with boiling grease. Ignoring medical training, which calls for wrapping the burn in a bandage, he plunged the burned hand into a sinkful of cold water. The pain stopped. He kept his hand in cold water for an hour, permanently killing the pain, and his hand healed quickly.

Since then, Surgeon Shulman has treated almost 200 cases of burns the same way. Medical texts ignore the cold-water treatment for burns, but Dr. Shulman found that it was a remedy in frontier America, and it is the traditional treatment in Iceland. Now, in Postgraduate Medicine, Reykjavik’s Dr. Ofeigur J. Ofeigsson makes firm recommendations for first aid in burns.

One case cited by Dr. Ofeigsson is that of a woman whose whole arm was scalded when she was a child of two. A kinswoman plunged the child’s arm into a bucket of cold water, but only up to the elbow. Her hand and forearm healed well and are almost unscarred, whereas the unimmersed upper arm is a mass of scar tissue. Dr. Ofeigsson’s rules for first aid in burns covering less than 20% of the body’s area:

> Cool the burns fast by removing clothing if it is loose, and immersing them in cold water (tap water, ice water, milk, soft drinks, or whatever is handy). For large burns, avoid excess chilling by using tap water without ice.

> Remove clothing only if it will lift off easily. And cut it away—”Never spare the garment; spare the skin.”

>If the burned part cannot be dipped in water, apply loose, wet, cold dressings.

>If the patient gets chilled, give him warm soup, but no alcohol, and add clothing to the unburned part of the body.

> Start all this before calling the doctor. Then ask the doctor to visit the patient rather than interrupt the treatment.