Gun powder for wounds?

S

STIHL

Joined
Aug 12, 1999
Messages
427
Well I guess we`ve all seen it in the movies,but is this for real?You see this poor guy shot in the leg with a 308 and his life long friend lighting him on fire with gun powder.I would think this would cause some sorta infection.Whata ya guys think?Must be real painfull on top of the original wound....huh?
Take care

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Jay
Life is like a box of chocolates,never know what your gona git!
 
This is one of the stupidest ideas I have heard about in a long time. I seem to recall that this was sometimes done a few centuries ago with black powder.

Clean the wound out with soap and boiled or purified water. Save the gunpowder for the gun. You can, with the gunpowder, turn a viable wound, which would do just fine, into a burn, with lots of dead tissue, which is just the sort of thing that leads to infection, particularly tetanus and gangrene.

Hope this helps, Walt
 
I think that Walt has put it as simply and directly as possible. Leave the gun powder in your muzzleloader. Ever see someone that was burned with fireworks?The potential for tissue damage leading to infection is present even if no wound is present, just check the local ER's of any major city on the 4th of July. If a wound is already present then you can multiply your chances for potential infection and tissue/neuronal damage..Tourniquet,direct pressure,wound cleansing,pain reliever,prophylactic Im antibiotic if ya got it,dressing, a couple of hail mary's and seek help..Did I miss anything Walt?
 
The idea in the gunpowder is to cauterize the wound. There are better ways if your testosterone has determined you must cauterize your owie. I have a very hard time imagining a situation where my best option was to cauterize myself, though assuming I could think of it (After all, I've had a doc cauterize stuff on me)I can think of better ways than gunpowder...


Stryver
 
How about a piece of cherry red steel?
wink.gif



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Jay
Life is like a box of chocolates,never know what your gona git!
 
Yes, it used to be standard procedure in the middle ages, and reputedly only stopped because one evening, the doctor in charge (I think it was Paracelsus) didn't have any more gunpowder, and just mixed up some kind of salve and put on the wounds. Surprise: Next morning more patients still lived than usually.

I don't think they did it to cauterize the wounds, probably more along the lines of "like cures like", since I haven't heard of it for any other kind of battle wounds.

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Urban Fredriksson
www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/

"Smooth and serrated blades cut in two entirely different fashions."
- The Teeth of the Tyrannosaurs, Scientific American, Sep 1999


 
You're asking for major infection and maybe blood poisoning. The only reason I can think of for cauterizing a wound at all would be uncontrollable bleeding. I'd ask for a pressure bandage and/or a tourniquet first. If for some weird reason it had to be done I would think a hot blade is more the tool. I would be afraid of doing it wrong and only making matters worse.
 
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