Objectives

In Iranian ancient medicinal text, many herbal mixtures have been mentioned for wound healing. Here we studied one of those mixtures.

Materials & Methods

A herbal mixture was made by grinding and sieving Myrrh, Astragalus, Dragon's blood and olibanum. The powder was sterilized by Ethylene Oxide. The study was carried out on 4 one-year-old, healthy dogs in the same condition and under general anesthesia. 2 five-cm. long uniform skin incisions were created on either side of thorax, 10 cm. apart. The wounds were randomly divided into control and treatment groups and left open. In both groups, daily rinsing (by normal saline) and debriding (if necessary) of the wounds were performed, followed by application of a two-layered dry-to-dry dressing. In treatment group, before dressing, the herbal powder was applied. On day 5 and 10, a 1×1 cm skin biopsy was obtained from middle of each wound for histopathological study (H&E staining).

Results

On day 5, although the gross appearance of the wounds in treatment group were better than the control group, but histopathologically the wounds were in the same conditions. Beginning of re-epithelialization and formation of immature granulation tissue was evident, and hemorrhage was observed in large scales in both groups. On day 10, in histopathological sections, complete re-epithelialization was observed in treatment group in comparison with the control one. The extent of hemorrhage was the same in both groups. Formation of granulation tissue was much more in treatment group, but the degree of maturation of the granulation tissue was the same in both groups.

Conclusion

Considering the established effects of the resins, the traditional herbal mixture can augment wound healing mainly through infection and inflammation control.