Dealing with severe burns & wounds without medical help

[Sekwo]

(21 July 2023, 10:27)bigpaul Wrote: if you leave an open wound then infection can get in.

But according to the military medical text I was reading, there was a major problem with closing DEEP wounds too early, because there was a high chance of bacteria that caused gangrene, and that was deadly. Apparently (before antibiotics) they started doing swabs to determine which bacteria were present and only closed the wound when the type that caused gangrene had disappeared.

The situation was particularly bad in the trenches, where the soil was contaminated by the bacteria that decompose flesh. Any wound was likely to have these present. So, they would cut out about 5mm of flesh around the wound and then leave it open typically for 4days to a week. Obviously by "open" I mean with bandages to keep it as clean as possible, but air could get to it through the bandage.

I'm not sure what this means in a non-military SHTF situation. But I'm thinking, if the wound may have cut off the blood supply and killed parts of the muscle, it is a good idea to leave the wound open so we can see what is happening and remove anything that is dead before it starts festering. I presume when it starts looking "healthy" and is "healing"... it can be closed.

However, the situation with burns is quite different. A severe burn starts by being infection free. So, even if the skin is dead, it is a barrier against infection. So, common sense, says we leave it in place ... but at some point the dead skin will start to promote infection and has to be removed ... or perhaps it naturally falls off?

My guess is that the "right" action in the situation is to apply some kind of anti-bacterial, anti-fungal cream to "preserve" the dead skin as a barrier. But that's just a guess.