Control of bleeding with burnt cotton from the perspective of Persian medicine

Bleeding may occur due to injury, blood disorders or the effect of the medications. Stopping bleeding often requires urgent medical attention and can cause disability and mortality in patients. Commonly used hemostatic drugs are not available and have limited efficacy. On the other hand, these drugs are expensive and the economic burden caused by various therapies has made many problems for the society. Persian medicine, one of the holistic medical schools, has special therapies in this regard which can be helpful for medical community. Various natural compounds have been used in Persian medicine to control bleeding, including ash types. One of its most popular types is burnt cotton. The purpose of this paper is to extract burnt cotton as an anti-hemorrhagic agent in the Persian medicine texts as a rich school with a history of fruitful growth.

This review study is a kind of library survey. For this purpose, firstly, the use of ash and cotton was investigated with different keywords in straining the bleeding in reliable sources of Persian medicine such as Canon of medicine, al-Havi and Zakhireh Kharazmshahi. Then, the effects of this compound on bleeding were sought for scientific evidence in databases such as PubMed, SID, and Google Scholar.

Ash has been mentioned as an experienced method for the treatment of bleeding in various valid sources of Persian medicine. Considering different properties for cotton, sages have known it to prevent bleeding and aggregate the components.

Since the anti-hemorrhagic effects of cotton have been proven in various sources of conventional medicine, it can be used in the form of burnt sterile gauze or burnt cotton as a cheap and available treatment in small size wounds with low depth that are not complex and the artery is not involved.