A Review of Scald Burn Injuries

Abstract

John P. Abraham jpabraham@stthomas.edu Abstract Burn injuries are common and sometimes serious inju ries that afflict persons of all ages, gender, socio-economic classes, and geography. Much effort has been placed into bu rn reduction campaigns and education. Nevertheless, t here are very few studies that clearly connect liquid scald temperatures with burn depth. Here, a review of literature, pre sentation of recent experiments and description of calculations are provided. From this review, tools are presented tha t serve three purposes. First, data on cooling rates of va rious beverage sizes and compositions are reviewed. This information enables a determination of the temperat ure of a beverage at the time of a spill, provided the servi c temperature is known. Second, the results provide t h prediction of burn depths for various spill tempera tu es with a focus on the temperatures that are required for bur ns to reach the mid-dermal region. Finally, the results are pr sented in easy-to-use graphs and tables so that it is possibl e to find what circumstances make severe burns likely. These data allow beverage service companies, parents and guardians, burn education organizations, and others to reduce the l ikelihood that severe burns will occur.