How does one collect medical information to make the development of a event more real? My example is a survivor situation where a not-so-well-meaning person pours boiling water into someone's rotting wound to try to stop gangrene. What happens? Does it work? Does the flesh cook? What does it smell like? I posted this question on yahoo answers and got useless comments. What I'd like to know are sources of getting realistic medical information to make the story believable. LadyJustin
I would first search on something like scalded gangrene. In doing so, I found a better medical term for gangrene, necrotising facsiitis, and searched on that. In the first search I also noticed that scalded skin was mentioned as providing an opportunity for the gangrene to initially take hold, which led me to conclude that the boiling water would merely create a larger area of dead meat for gangrene to take hold in, even in the unlikely chance that the boiling water killed the original infection (and also assuming the victim did not succumb to shock from the scald). The second search would give you everything you ever wanted to know about gangrene infections, and probably more than you wished to know. It's pretty gruesome reading. Another avenue to explore might be to talk to an off duty doctor or EMT, or someone at a Red Cross center. That would be better once you have completed your initial online research and have a list of specific questions that are still unanswered.
Ooh, ooh, any opportunity to share this magnificent site! wrongdiagnosis.com - Better, probably, for conditions and illnesses than injuries and first aid, etc., but excellent and expansive all the same. If nothing else, it'll give you good terms with which to better expand your research. For instance, I'm working on a short House MD fanfic/original story crossover (what writer's block can do!) where the DDX team has a case of deliberate pesticide poisoning. Between watching House itself (specifically, S1Ep8 "Poison") and searching that site, I've got a host of not only pesticide poisoning symptoms, but alternate diagnoses. And tests and treatments for each. So, I sing the praises of that site! Thus, yes, searches. Talking to a doctor, if you can. And that site. Good luck! (When I finally start to make sense of it, medicine is so interesting! Now one of my favorite subjects. *Shares the joy*)
