Besides certain snake bites, debilitating diseases, and/or being run over by a steam-roller, the most disfiguring injuries are made by burns. The following method has been tried and tested for hundreds of years, with excellent results in all cases. This does not provide excellent results. Exposing the wound to sugar and not cleaning it will increase risk of infection. Burns are serious injuries that should be treated by qualified medical providers.


Steps
Immediately after receiving the burn

1. Cool the burned area down as rapidly as is possible, to stop the flesh from cooking any further. Use cold, running water and cool it to a comfortable level; do not apply ice and freeze it.
2. Pour enough clean honey over the burned area to overlap the wound and cover completely with thin, flexible, plastic wrap. Do not skimp on the honey - you can never use too much (except to the extent that it drips all over the place, making everything sticky and attracting insects). A thin plastic bag or sandwich bag can be slit along the edges or corner and used for the purpose of spreading the honey.
3. Wrap the affected area with plastic wrap, such as cling wrap, being careful to keep a layer of honey between the burn and the plastic. Secure the plastic wrapping with gauze or crepe bandage and leave it alone for two days.

During the aftermath

1. After 48 hours, open it up and check for infection. There will usually not be any, as the burned flesh has been sterilised initially by the heat of the burn(unless it was cooled with dirty water, there is little chance of there being any noxious organisms present). However, don’t panic if infection is present: Have the victim eat a tablespoon of honey (preferably unfiltered and/or raw honey, containing propolis [a highly antibacterial product found naturally in raw honey], pollen, wax etc. The honey can be disguised in a sandwich) three times a day. It is imperative that the wound is not washed at all throughout this whole process. The honey must not be washed off; simply add more each time the dressing is opened. The rationale behind not washing the injury is that the honey forms a protective barrier over the area, and removing it will permit exposure to the vulnerable tissue.
2. Charred or loose flesh may be removed with sterilised tweezers, but do not force it if it adheres to the wound: it will disengage in time. Pour more honey over the wound and cover, as before, with plastic wrapping and gauze or crepe, once again leaving it for two days. Repeat the foregoing process every two days.
3. Continue to do this until the wound begins to granulate (about a week to ten days), then leave the dressing off for an hour, after which, pour more honey onto it and cover it up again. Again, do not be tempted to wash it!
4. Now, every day, remove the dressing and leave the wound open for an hour longer each day. After seventeen to twenty days, the wound should have repaired enough to cover it with only a light dressing. At this stage it may be washed with warm water only - do not use soap or anything else - and the old honey removed. After a month, it should no longer require dressing and normal ablution procedures can be commenced.
5. If infection occurs and the ingestion of honey does not appear to help, give the victim three bananas to eat every day, or give him a course of potassium tablets for a fortnight, in addition to the three tablespoons of honey. The honey and banana can be incorporated into a sandwich.
6. The wound should heal up with minimal scarring, if any is evident at all, after a month or two.

Tips

• Honey is hygroscopic, meaning that it attracts and absorbs moisture. It thus retains the plasma that is inevitably released by the wound and keeps it in close contact with the damaged tissue, allowing for re-absorption. The plasma is enriched with dissolved nutrients, minerals and trace elements, including propolis (which appears to have a disinfectant quality), from the honey when it is re-assimilated into the damaged flesh.
• The plastic wrapping material does not permit the honey to lose moisture to the atmosphere, and keeps it in intimate contact with the injured tissue. This forestalls desiccation of the burn injury, preventing the formation of unsightly scar tissue. In addition, the honey does not permit the dressing to adhere to the wound, so that the traumatised tissue remains intact when the bandaging is removed. One of the major causes of scarring in burn cases is the rending of the flesh every time the dressing is changed.
• Honey and the banana both have a high potassium content, which, besides being beneficial to humans, is highly antagonistic toward harmful bacteria and necrosis-causing organisms.
• This has been used on a very deep burn from molten metal, that removed flesh the size of a thumbnail down to the bone on the back of a forefinger, and on an extensive steam burn around one person’s midriff. Both healed up completely, the one on the finger growing the hairs back and even remembering to include a scar that had resulted from an incision years before! It is worth mentioning that the repair was complete, and that full mobility of the extensors was returned to the finger. The midriff burn caused a blister the size of an open hand, but there was nothing to show for it after two months.
• This procedure will certainly be greeted by howls of censure from most members of the medical profession. However, they are not in a position to judge the efficacy of the treatment, as they have probably never tested it. Those who have are not in a position to approve it, as it is not regarded as “standard (or even acceptable) medical procedure". It would serve dissenters well to heed the words of Sir William Ostler when addressing a graduating medical class: “Gentlemen, I have a confession to make - half of what we have taught you is in error; and furthermore we cannot tell you which half it is."
• The same treatment has been used on numerous other injuries over the years, with
• Monotonously predictable results.
• A thumb that had been bitten by an Egyptian cobra deteriorated to such a degree that it was condemned to be amputated, despite hospital treatment with Betadine, antibiotics and excision of mortified tissue. The owner of the thumb left the hospital and applied the above-outlined treatment to it. He returned to the hospital three days later and presented the now pink, healthy-looking digit for examination. So impressed was the professor in charge of the case in its improvement, that she reportedly employs said treatment in all cases of necrosis caused by snake bites, with seemingly miraculous results.
• It has similar effects when used on boils and in place of disinfectants and antibiotic creams on sutured wounds. Although the honey treatment has been employed on many other lacerations, abrasions, insect bites and puncture wounds, there are as yet no reports of it having been used on chancres or similarly erosive invasions, or on rodent ulcers, although it has been injected into the burrows of screw-worms in rabbits, after the screw-worms have been extracted, with almost inescapably beneficent consequences.
• All animals that have been treated with it respond most favourably and even dogs and cats could benefit from the treatment, if a means could be found to stop them ripping off the dressings and licking away the honey.
• Some brave medical student should investigate the treatment and compare it with conventional burn therapy as part of a thesis … or perhaps a doctor in some far-flung, rural area, where standard medications are scarce, could use it and report on his or her findings to acceptable medical publications, thereby bringing it to the notice of the medical fraternity.
• Some years back, there was a report of an Indian doctor who discovered that using the peels of cooked potatoes had a remarkable effect in the treatment of burns. He would probably have had more spectacular results had he used banana skins, or even mashed bananas. The honey treatment, however, is superior to both, as the honey does not deteriorate or dry out when covered with plastic wrapping. It contains its own preservative, so that it will not decompose, as the banana skins and flesh will, and it infiltrates the damaged tissue, bathing, nurturing and nourishing it with its nutrients and minerals.

Warnings

• This is not to be taken as medical advice: anyone who uses it does so solely on faith that Nature has a cure for everything.
• Never give honey to children under one year of age, as it can be fatal. If a very young child has a badly infected burn, they should probably receive medical treatment anyway.