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Medical Forum / General / General / January 2006Thermal Burn Injury -- Why Does it Appear *White*?
<"Burn" Topic Continued from Last Year!> I hope you all had a happy winter break. For me, work starts on January 3rd on Tuesday. I hope my persistence on this question about thermal burns is not annoying anyone. PD wrote: > Radium wrote: > > Bob wrote: > > > On 16 Dec 2005 22:37:41 -0800, "Radium" <gluceg...@excite.com> wrote: > > > >Okay but what other symptoms would occur? Would the skin texture > > > >change? If so, how? > > > By the rules you established, who knows. > > Why do you say that? Wouldn't denaturing the proteins cause a change in > > skin texture? I assume [but DON'T *know*] that the skin would soften > > and liquify [given that -- under my rule -- the proteins can't > > coagulate]. > > > I answered the melanin question because it is specific. One could > > > study this in the lab... heat melanin under conditions as desired and > > > see what happens. > > I've seen burn wound look 'scary' white. Sometimes it looks like white > > foam. Once, I was burnt by a hot plate. The wound did look white and > > foamy for a while. Why does this happen? [NOTE: this is NOT under my > > rules!!!] > > > Skin is part of a complex biological system, > > True. > > > and your groundrules > > > essentially say to ignore everything we know. > > How so? It is possible in injure only one organ system w/out injuring > > other systems. > But that's not what you're proposing. An "organ system" is a collection > of tissues. You are proposing damage to a specific *tissue* in an organ > system, not to the organ system. Okay. Sorry I didn't use the correct terms. > If you scratch your arm, you will see two things happen. The area > around the scratch will first turn whitish, and then it will turn red > and inflamed. Both of these are stages in a highly complex immune > response involving the release of histamines in the area of the wound. > Neither of these changes is particular to the damaged tissue itself, > but illustrates the complexity of the *organ system* that is the skin. The red is definitely due to the immune response. It is part of the inflammatory reaction. Is the 'whiteness' due to the immune response? I doubt it but I could be wrong. As I said, my burn injury [from touching a hot plate] looked white. I am not sure why the injured skin looked white. My thinking is that the heat damaged the dermal pigments in that area. Once again, I could be wrong. > In answer to your question about what would happen to your burnt > tissues in a week, it would turn black and begin to smell very bad as > bacterial decomposition sets in. I am aware of this. However, in my rules, infection or microbial decomposition canNOT occur. So if there was no bacterial [or any microbial] decay, how would the burn look like? Under my -- too good to be true in today's technology -- rules, inflammatory reactions also canNOT occur. So how would the burn look like? > See "gangrene" and "frostbite" for > what happens to dead tissue as a function of time. Already know about this. However in my rules, this would not occur. The injured tissue would either remain a "fresh" wound for life OR it would spring back to a normal and un-injured state as soon as direct contact with the open flame is stopped. > PD > > Of course, burning the skin would effect the rest of the > > body. The nerve endings would be stimulated they would carry info to > > the brain. The subject would then feel the pain, obviously. So yes, > > affecting the skin can INDIRECTLY affect other organs [like the brain > > in the case of tactile perception]. I never said that it wouldn't. I > > DID say that it won't *injure* other body systems. > > > What is the point? Sometimes people actually have a purpose for the > > > question, then contrive a question that per se makes little sense, and > > > does not lead to what is wanted anyway. > > Well, I am interested in the hypothetical. Its like Sci-Fi sometimes. I > > know it sounds crazy I am interested in wierd things. > <"Burn" Topic Continued from Last Year!> > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > I hope my persistence on this question about thermal burns is not > annoying anyone. Far from it. I stick with "Green". If you're going to come up with such a totally fabricated scenario in which you are making up your own rules, you can probably justify any colour of the rainbow. ahahahaha.... Why are you obsessing with this? Turn it into fun!: Do an experiment and then obsess enjoying it, getting your answers first hand: Fry an egg!... Ever heard of egg-white? ...observe, conclude, eat! Fry a fresh, transparent fish- or shrimp piece. ...observe, conclude, eat. First the transparent proteins denaturate/coagulate and turn white. Then keep frying and its glyco/sugar type components caramelize and turn brown, and upon further frying they "char" into black stuff, wherein an early stage of it (under certain conditions) makes the fabeled "Dulce-de-Leche" -- for the palate -- ahhhh... mmmhh... mmmh... ahhh... generated by the Maillard-Strecker reaction as in the 97,100 google hits for "Maillard reaction" with the executive recipe in http://www.milk.com/recipes/dessert/dulce-de-leche.html which creates this delectable dessert that contains... (so the enviro-sh.ts will warn you -- to spoil your fun and joy)... these mutagenic Furanoses, Pyrazines and Aldehydes and Acrylamide... ahahaha.... but be macho make yourself a batch of "Dulce-de-Leche" and test whether you have succumbed to the sick, paranoid and f.cked up propaganda of the enviro turds and whether these green sh.ts have been able to even ruin your desserts..........ahahahahaha.....AHAHAHA..... Enjoy chemistry...... but f.ck enviros! ahahahaha.......ahahahanson > <"Burn" Topic Continued from Last Year!> > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > inflammatory reactions also canNOT occur. > So how would the burn look like? Why are you obsessing with this: Do an experiment, dude/ette! Fry an egg!... Ever heard of egg-white? ...observe, conclude, eat! Fry a fresh, transparent fish- or shrimp piece. ...observe, conclude, eat. First the transparent proteins denaturate/coagulate and turn white. Then keep frying and its glyco/sugar type components caramelize and turn brown, and upon further frying they "char" into black stuff, wherein an early stage of it (under certain conditions) makes the fabeled "Dulce-de-Leche" -- for the palate -- ahhhh... mmmhh... mmmh... ahhh... generated by the Maillard-Strecker reaction as in the 97,100 google hits for "Maillard reaction" with the executive recipe in... http://www.milk.com/recipes/dessert/dulce-de-leche.html which creates this delectable dessert that contains... (so the enviro-sh.ts will warn you -- to spoil your fun and joy)... these mutagenic Furanoses, Pyrazines and Aldehydes and Acrylamide... ahahaha.... but be macho make yourself a batch of "Dulce-de-Leche" and test whether you have succumbed to the sick, paranoid and f.cked up propaganda of the enviro turds and whether these green sh.ts have been able to even ruin your desserts..........ahahahahaha.....AHAHAHA..... Enjoy chemistry...... but f.ck enviros! ahahahaha.......ahahahanson > <"Burn" Topic Continued from Last Year!> > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > inflammatory reactions also canNOT occur. > So how would the burn look like? Cold burns appear white, too, as when your finger lingers too long on the plumbing carrying liquid nitrogen. I don't know the reason, but I would guess that fluids build up underneath the outer layer of skin and lift it away from the living layer that contains the blood vessels and so on. With heat burns, though, I've gotten definite searing, but from a brief enough exposure that damage to the living skin was minor.  Signature"Will we be suturing the anus?" But my burn was from contact with a hot plate for only a couple of seconds. It must have been a first-degree burn. But why was it white? There was *no* blistering or any build up of fluids. Well, you baked the water out of some collagen. If you burn yourself good enough, you'll hit blood vessels and then it looks like raw hamburger. All you did was to bake the water out of collagen. It loses it's translucent properties, and starts to look more like high-density poluethylene - and it aint really all that different (generally speaking) - collagen is just a very amazing living plastic. > Well, you baked the water out of some collagen. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > poluethylene - and it aint really all that different (generally > speaking) - collagen is just a very amazing living plastic. What do you mean by "bake the water out of"? There was no dehydration at all. The temperature of the plate wasn't high enough to dehydrate the skin in the region it touched. AFAIK, the water content in the skin of the burn region was no different from the skin on the rest of my body. So back to my question: Why did the burn look white? the white burns I have gotten were quite superficial, just the outer layer of dead skin. Usually from something very hot and of short duration. Not deep enough to affect any melanin layers. |
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