When I was a kid, we used to like burning camp fires a lot. Fire is magnificent. Gathering wood in the forest, setting up the fire, gathering even more wood to keep it burning, and finally sitting around it mesmerised by the flames… there’s something fascinating about it. That’s what our prehistoric ancestors did. That’s what helped them live longer, survive the Ice Age and eventually evolve in what we are now.
Naturally, small burns were common. I particularly remember one accident. Where was a piece of chocolate left, and somebody said it’s great when melted. So I decided to melt it on metal saw blade which happened to lie around.
Of course, I burned my finger when extracting the blade from the fire. The funny thing is it was completely clear to me that the metal is burning hot, but somehow, I didn’t insulate my fingers. I thought, well, it’s long enough, maybe the other end is not that hot. Even though metal is a perfect heat conductor…
Melted chocolate all forgotten, I returned home. It was late, but the pain was unbearable to sleep.
I took a bowl with cold water and put the burnt finger inside it. It reduced the pain until the water warmed up, and the pain came back. I replaced the water…and again…and again. Getting very tired, I ended up lying in bed with my hand in the bowl…and felt asleep.
In the morning, I was astonished. There was no pain! Of course there was a blister, but it looked like the burn was a couple days ago, not hours.
I had another “chance” to test that pain killing and healing practice. My brother was preparing his motorcycle for sale. That required some wire soldering. I entered the garage, where he was sitting on an old coach tingling with the wiring. Resting my palm on the sofa wooden handle, I started asking something. My brother never replied, looking transfixed on my hand for what seemed to be a minute.
Then I felt it. I was holding a hot 60wt soldering iron in my hand. The handle was used as a stand. My brother always messes things up.
The iron was an old-fashion one, with huge ventilation holes like on a machine gun barrel cover or any other weapon with high rate of fire:
All of those holes imprinted on my palm. The pain was unbearable. I rushed to put it into the water bowl.
In fact, I went around with my palm in the hand all day long. The kids at the hood laughed at me.
In the evening, the pain was bearable and I could sleep. The next day the hand looked much better then I expected.
Years later, I saw a documentary about Precontinent III, the famous Jacques Cousteau underwater station. Among other things, the divers noticed that facial hair grows slower, and cuts heal faster underwater. My experience confirms that, and it’s not limited to sea water. After all, life on earth came from the ocean. And we spend the first 9 month of our lives in water. So, it’s natural that water helps us to heal faster.