Medicine: Home Remedy for Burns

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To fight severe burns, modern medicine has experimented with all kinds of remedies—tannic acid (now in some disrepute), bandaging, baths, skin grafting, diet, even hypnosis. But the victim of an extensive burn (more than 10% of the skin) is in most critical danger from loss of fluid and shock. The standard treatment for this has long been to administer either whole blood or blood plasma intravenously. Since plasma is often not available and since it often contains hepatitis virus, doctors have been looking for a simpler remedy. Last week a team of U.S. Public Health Service scientists announced that they had found it. Their remedy: a solution of simple table salt and baking soda, taken orally.

Although salt and baking soda has been a remedy for burns for many years, nobody had suggested that it could be substituted for plasma injections. The present findings are based on a four-year study of burn victims conducted by U.S. and Peruvian researchers in Lima. If administered within three hours after injury, the scientists found, the saline solution (two teaspoons of table salt to one of baking soda in two quarts of water) acts just as effectively as plasma in warding off shock. The victim may drink as many as seven quarts of the solution in the first twelve hours. Later, the patient gets standard hospital burn treatment.