Why picric acid and tannic acids are used in the treatment of burns?

Picric Acid:

1. In the First World War the treatment of burns consisted in the application of various antiseptic dressings. Picric acid in a 1 per cent aqueous solution was commonly used.

2. The treatment by picric acid carried with it some danger of absorption when used over large raw surfaces, but it was generally a very satisfactory form of treatment.

3. It controled pain and rapidly promoted healing.

Tannic acid:

1. The use of tannic acid was a distinct advance in the treatment of cutaneous burns and found the care of patients relatively simple.

2. Beneficial effects: rapid alleviation of pain, lessened infection, reduced local loss of body fluids, prosperous epithelization, relative absence of contractures, and diminished scar-tissue formation.

3. Most important of all, good survival statistics were reported in several studies. In a group of 114 patients treated with tannic acid, Beekman observed a mortality rate of 14.9 percent, which was considerably lower than the Death Rate of 27.8 percent in the 320 patients treated otherwise. He also showed that the number of patients dying from the second to the tenth day, the period of toxemia, was strongly decreased in the tannic acid-treated group.