Rising from the Flames

by Carter, Albert Howard, III; Petro, Jane A.

• ISBN13: 9780812215175
• ISBN10: 0812215176
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr

Summary

Although medical advances have remarkably increased the survival rate of the severely burned, such patients still encounter physical and psychological pain and disability, disfigurement, and social rejection.Rising from the Flamesexamines the experience of the severely burned as survivors confront it, not just as a medical event but as a human ordeal involving social, cultural, psychological, and medical trauma. It discusses the causes of burns, the physiology of injury and healing, the forms of isolation burn patients endure, and the cultural meaning attached to burns and burned persons.

Author Biography

Albert Howard Carter III, PhD is Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities at Eckerd College.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Confidentiality
Introduction: The Danger and Extremity of Severe Burns	p. 1
The Nature of Burns	p. 9
What Are Burns?	p. 11
Heat, Culture, and Betrayal	p. 36
Burn Wounds - Damage by Accident or Intent	p. 50
Prison or Nursery? Patients' Limitations in the Burn Unit	p. 65
Perceiving Burns Through Images and Stories	p. 87
Myths of Fire and Burns	p. 89
Darkman and Other Images of Burns in Popular Culture	p. 105
Honey or Acid? A Short History of Burn Care	p. 131
Modern Care: Challenges to Patients, Families, and Caregivers	p. 149
Contemporary Burn Care: "They Have All These Neat Things They Can Do Now"	p. 151
Icarus Recovers (or Dies): How High Can a Survivor Fly?	p. 177
Burn Care as a Stimulus for Medicine and Society	p. 186
Epilogue	p. 197
Versions of the Phantom	p. 201
A Room Fire Illustrates Modern Fire Science	p. 205
Bibliography/Filmography	p. 207
Index	p. 219
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