SOAP AND WATER

You might be surprised but most superficial wounds would heal with soap and water; no povidone iodine, no ointments, no dressing; plain and simple soap and water. Before the advent of antibiotics, especially during the Spanish civil war, they only had two choices with limb wounds: amputate or TRUETA TECHNIQUE which just allowing nature to heal itself. This meant leaving the wounds open and allowing maggots to grow inside the wound. Well, most patients died of Tetanus rather than infection despite the fact that there was no antibiotics given. What Trueta did, a Spanish surgeon, was to wash the wounds, debride all dead tissues and allow the wound to heal itself. Liniments and all medicines used for wound dressing were not available yet. A review of this old technique and comparison was made with our present method of wound treatments revealed no significant advantage of the present  procedure just to show that we never advanced in the medicine of wound healing and all current washings we use in the emergency room are ineffective.