Curtana (curtana) wrote in little_details,
Curtana
curtana
little_details

Flaying and resultant scars

Okay, let's assume that someone has most of the skin flayed off their hand. Let's also assume that they don't die from their injuries or a subsequent infection (yes, I know infection is very likely with an injury of this sort, but let's avoid that for the moment, please!) And let's also assume that this is an age before skin grafts and there is neither modern medicine nor magical healing. Basically, this rather horrible wound is allowed to heal naturally. About how long does it take to heal? Would the hand basically be covered in scar tissue, or would more normal-looking skin eventually grow back? Would the hand be unusable even after it's healed? Maybe just kind of stiff or sore? I just don't have any good sense of how disfigured and/or crippled this character is likely to be.

I've tried googling 'flaying', 'flayed', 'skin' and 'scar' in various combinations, and I've read the wiki article on flaying and one very graphic article called 'Severe Accidental Flaying' (seriously, don't click if you have a weak stomach, there are pictures) but everything I've found so far either assumes skin grafts are possible, or alternately that the victim is completely flayed as a method of torture/execution, and therefore no healing is going to happen. I also tried looking for 'scalping', since I know that some people survived that, and saw some pictures of the scars that resulted, but I'm not sure how well it would translate to a hand.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Tags: ~medicine: injuries (misc)
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