HERB - Wounds and Healing (long)

[Lynette]

Your explaination seems a bit sketchey to me but you have the general idea.
I just wonder if it might be too sketchy for some to understand?  (it might
be just me)  By the way I assume fibrolast  is a mistype and that you meant
to say fibroblast.  Great job I REALLY like the visual images you create
with your telling.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gaylin" <iasmin at home.com>
To: <herbalist at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 2:18 PM
Subject: HERB - Wounds and Healing (long)


> Isirith and all who asked about wounds and healing, I finally have had
some
> time to sit down and put stuff down into an e-mail. I hope this is what
you
> were looking for. If not, please ask me questions and I'll try to answer
> them more to your liking as I can with what's in my peanut brain right
> now. My apologies for any length issues. If you seem to miss some of this,
> again, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help get you the original
> info. If you find the info is too much beneath your knowledge, apologies
> most profusely. The simple way seems best for explanation because the
> medical terms, which I'm going to try to keep to a minimum, can be kind
> of daunting. :)
>
> Jasmine, Iasmin de Cordoba, iasmin at home.com or gwalli at ptc.com
>
> PS: For those of you with more medical training than I, jump right in
> and correct me, please. I'd hate to think I was disseminating information
> that was incorrect. I'm always willing to learn more on this topic.
>
> ------------
>
> How Wounds Heal
>
> Let's take a little look at how wounds heal so that you can better
understand
> how medical treatments were intended to be used throughout history. When
> you understand the nature of what the medical experts were trying to
treat,
> sometimes it helps you better understand why a particular substance was
> used for treatment.
>
> Wounds in humans are  repaired rather than rebuilt. This is important to
> note because we can only repair wounded limbs, not regrow them. When
> you're wounded, say from a large cut in the skin, the body has a special
way
> of fixing a wound using specialized tissue. The tissue is called
"connective
> tissue." Connective tissue is made up of two different kind of fibers and
a
> special goopy gel that bathes them (collagen fibers, elastic fibers, and
> mucopolysaccharides, for the technically minded).
>
> Now, within this tissue are a couple of cell types. One of them is small
and
> skinny and is called a "fibrolast." When your tissue gets injured,
fibrolasts
> immediately set to work to make the error right. Except for one problem:
> wounds are messy. When you're wounded, blood gets where it's not supposed
> to be, debris in the form of damaged or dead tissue ends up in the middle
of
> nowhere, and foreign material and bacteria end up invading the body like
it
> was a free buffet dinner line. Not a good thing and terribly frustrating
for
> the fibrolasts who are just trying to do their job of repairing you.
Fibrolasts
> are the good guys.
>
> Because the fibrolasts seem to be getting the bum end of the deal, the
body
> has developed a few very elegant processes for various parts of the body
that
> help with the repair of wounds. First things first, a wound gets somewhat
> inflamed. What the body is doing here is rushing extra workers to the
scene
> of the damage via blood. Blood cells contain the extra help in the
> form of white
> blood cells. Protein to fight the bacteria arrives with the blood, and
other
> chemicals are brought with the blood as well. Each little piece has a
different
> job. White blood cells especially have differing types that do different
jobs.
> Some eat bacteria, some eat debris. White blood cells are the good guys
too.
>
> So at this point we have blood working on cleanup and fibrolasts working
on
> repair, except for one little problem: its not that easy to get rid of
bacteria
> in most cases. Bacteria are the bad guys. Sometimes they're very bad guys.
> When fibrolasts are working, they are constantly having to rebuild tissue
> bits. White blood cells constantly having to clean up against the
> tide of bacteria
> that keeps destroying tissue. This battle is what we call an
> "infection" today. And
> an infection can take pretty much two general courses. We all hope
> for the first
> course which is minimal bacteria easily destroyed by white blood cells
cleaning
> up a wound and fibrolasts working their little hearts out to repair any
damage.
> The fibrolasts slowly rebuild the connective tissue and the goopy gel
> that bathes
> it so that the gap of a wound is filled. The new tissue that the
> fibrolasts build is
> called "granulation tissue because it looks bumpy under a microscope.
>
> Here's where we'll take our first side trip into the history of
> wounds. The kind of
> infection, cleanup, and repair work that I've just described, one in
> which there's
> little trouble with infection and relatively easy rebuilding is
> called "healing by
> first intention." The second course an infection can take is not so good.
When
> bacteria flares up and starts fighting, white blood cells are sent to
> clean them
> up and get rid of them. When the bacteria wins, the white blood cells die.
This
> causes even more white blood cells to flood the area. This flood is
> called "pus"
> a very normal, but sometimes annoying creamy white substance.
>
> Have you ever heard people use the phrase "laudable pus" and wondered what
> they meant? The fact that white blood cells die for a good cause, that
they die
> at the scene of a battle and they don't go back, is where the "laudable"
phrase
> comes from. In Latin is was usually "pus bonum et laudabile" or "good and
> laudable pus." The formation of pus in modern medical terms is called
> "suppuration." The fact that pus is created is not necessarily bad.
> Only bad pus
> is bad. Good pus, the laudable pus that the ancient medical personnel
praised,
> was infinitely preferred and still is because it indicates that a
> wound is healing
> well. Any pus that is not thick and creamy and relatively white means that
the
> bacteria in the wound is particularly strong or the body is having a
difficult
> time defending itself against the bacteria (because the body may already
be
> at a low, defensive point, say, from another illness).
>
> So, we have a battle going on, and white blood cells are dying. In
> the process of dying
> they release chemicals that they didn't have time to use up fighting
> bacteria. On
> one hand this is bad because the chemicals actually cause a breakdown
> in the tissue
> the fibrolasts are trying so hard to repair. But on the other hand,
> the release of
> those chemicals is actually pretty good because it also destroys the
> dead and dying
> tissue the bacteria wants to hide in. So when bacteria gets the upper
> hand before
> a wound can be healed by the fibrolasts, we have the second course an
infection
> can take called "healing by second intention."
>
> Okay, so we have wounds healing, whether by first or second intention, and
the
> end result of the healing is that a gap where the wound was is
> gradually filled up
> by the aforementioned granulation tissue. That is, tissue and a nice,
> dried-up scab of
> blood on top of open wounds. The scab protects the new, raw tissue
> until more skin
> can grow to cover it. As the gap where of the wound is filled up, the
> edges of the
> wound gradually pull together. This is called "contraction." During
> contraction,
> new skin grows under the scab and the new tissue that the fibrolasts
> worked so hard
> to put together is protected even further. Eventually, a whole lot of
> fibers are
> created and most of the rest of the cells die off, leaving a scar,
> hopefully small.
> The wound should now be healed.
>
> I've glossed over a few items, such as what else can go wrong with wounds
(e.g.
> some other forms of inflammations, ulcers, excess tissue, or massive
tissue
> death). For the most part, however, the process of repair and cleanup of
wounds
> is fairly straightforward. Understanding the basic process will help you a
bit
> toward understanding why ancient and medieval doctors used the tools and
> substances they used on wounds.
>
> [written 8/31/00 by Iasmin de Cordoba (Gaylin Walli), iasmin at home.com]
>
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