Analyzing lost formula

I've been debating this in my mind for awhile, because, there is not much left.
The story I was told is that it could not be duplicated. That was over 20 years ago.

The following is a brief story of what happened.

In the 80's I burned myself at work on white hot steel. A customer saw it happen as I went to run my arm under cold water, he left the premises.

After about 10-15 minutes, I was ready to dress the 3rd degree burn when the man returned, stuck his head into the employee area and said, "Excuse me, but did you just burn yourself"?
I rolled my eyes in embarrassment and answered,"yeah."

He told me he had some stuff that would help, and held out a 4oz or so plastic bottle with a dropper cap lid. He told me to put some on my burn.
There was no label and having been burned before, knew that I was looking at 6-8 weeks of care and hopes on no infection.
I was reluctant and asked what it was.

To outline the story, his Dad made it in the 60's while developing rotary technology to add to fuel hoping to help explosive and injurious accidents that these engine failures were causing. Later they ran the exhaust with this burning in it to an enclosure of lab rats and they were able to breath the exhaust.
Then, they determined it stopped burns cold. and if it was applied within 30 secs to a minute, the burn would be way less severe. He said that his father, also a pilot had always carried some and once he applied it upon an infant that was scaulded with hot coffee on a flight, which emergency landed while ground medics were astonished that the infant had red skin but no scaulding as excpected.
That his Father was negotiating sale of the formula when he died, leaving no formula behind that could be located.

Mind you this was the 80's.
They (his family) had what was left of the only 50 gallons produced but in attempting do duplicate the formula, could not make it work, thus deciding to keep it as a family only medicinal supply.

I was in pretty good pain and thought this guy looked and sounded legit. He even put some on his finger and tongued it.
So, I put a drop on my burn, and started opening some gause to cover it.
The liquid is clear, has an oil-like slick feel and smells like nothing.
He told me don't try to cover it because nothing would stick, and he was right.
He told me that in 4 days, it would be scabbed over with a thick black scab and by day 6 it would fall off and that would be it.
On the 6th day, the thick black scab fell off leaving behind just a pink skinned area whrere the burn had been.
I worked around dirt and oil, grease etc..and the whole time never covered it, just a drop a day on it and never got infected. I was surprised.

I used it now and then and for close friends if they were around. It took the swelling and throbbing pain away from blood blisters as well, and cuts healed quickly.
Now, I have a very small amount left, but the technology may be able to crack the formula today. I need a che mist or such to check a sample.

This stuff (if the story told is true) is now more than 40 years old.
I've had it over 20 years, and it has not changed in consistency on any noticable way.
Last week, a newer friend came by with a bretty good burn on her thumb and I put one drop on it.
I saw her the next day and she showed me her thumb. There was no sign of the burn.

Still seems to work. But as stated, only a small, and I mean very small sample left.

What to do....what to do....

You would need to find a medicinal chemist or someone who can do a GC/MS analysis on it to determine the ingredients. These tests can be costly. Do you have any friends who work in a lab?

(GC/MS = Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry)

[edit on 7-11-2008 by AnubisOfTheEastandWest]

You should be able to go to those places that employers send you to take urinalysis's, and see if they can run it for you. Just have them sign something so they won't steal the formula! Are you able to contact that guy?

Sound like burn gel to me.

I had an accident a few years ago, i had a very bad injury on one of my hands, very similar to heavy burns, and i had burn gel put on the burns at the hospital, it was very similar to what you describe.

Burn gel is very new, mostly seems to be used on emergency treatments where the injure needs to be treated right away or to prevent infection until the people can be treated.

It comes to mind that maybe this guy's father came to this same formula that they now use on burn gel, but 40 years ago? imagine that, and nobody ever really knew until now how to make it?

Or maybe it is completely something else? who knows, there are tons of things that were invented long before actual "invention" that simply were put on hold or on testing phase for many years until found safe, or simply they never were known because the people who invented them never did anything to make them public and years and years later someone else comes to the same finding and makes something out of it.

Or something, who could know? i guess your best bet is to have it examined by a lab, with the risk of loosing the secret ownership, sadly.

Any industrial chemist can analyze it.

My husband's father was an industrial chemist, and he was asked to analyze all sorts of things, from Col. Sanders' "secret spices" to hair gel and so on and so forth. Any chemist worth his salt can tell you what's in it and tell you how to reproduce it.

And I agree with Kaifan that it sounds like some sort of burn gel. I know chemists have been working on this for awhile (and the 1960's-1970's is when independent chemists like my husband's father (he owned his own 3-man company) were making things like fire retardants and so forth.

What's been interesting to me is how many of these tiny companies come up with some good stuff but then have trouble getting it to market. They don't sell to larger companies because they'd have to give up patent rights and the licensing legalities are a mess... so they'd rather do it themselves.

But... could be an early prototype burn gel. Neat stuff!