Dressings from Household Cloth: Boiling Time, the Iron's Margin, and the Fuel in a Batch of Clean Dressings

Households without a supply of sterile dressings often boil household cloth, or press it with a hot iron, and treat the result as clean enough to cover a wound. This study is a simulation from stated assumptions, not a measurement. It applies a stated moist-heat relation, with a D-value at 100 °C of 1.0 minutes and a z-value of 10.0 °C, to a stated target of a 12 log reduction, and a stated dry-heat relation for the iron. At sea level the boiling point is 100.0 °C and the required boiling time is 12.0 minutes. At 1000 m the boiling point falls to 96.49 °C and the required time rises to 26.92 minutes. At 2000 m the boiling point is 92.98 °C and the required time is 60.39 minutes. Boiling therefore reaches the stated standard at every altitude examined, provided the time is extended. The iron reaches it only on its high setting under the stated dry-heat relation: at 200 °C the required contact time per area is 0.6 minutes, while at 150 °C it is 189.74 minutes and at 110 °C it is 18973.67 minutes. A batch of 20 dressings boiled in 5.0 litres of water needs 0.865 kg of wood at sea level, 0.982 kg at 1000 m, and 1.285 kg at 2000 m under the stated stove assumptions. Boiled cloth holding 1.0 kg of retained water dries in 2.5 hours in sun and 6.67 hours in shade at the stated rates.