How is sodium chloride used to disinfect wounds?

Question

Sodium chloride----> NaCl (salt)

Derivative of chlorine.

Answer 1

So, I see that this has been asked before on yahoo, and most people just say it isn't used.  But I do have a memory that, though painful, it was used in the past (very long ago), so ...

There are many many better things to use than salt.  As an antiseptic it barely gets a mention -see wiki below.  But I see that there are salt pads sold to promote healing from this website -below.  And there is a guy that is trying to patent a NaCl bandage thing too -also below.  He mentions the use of salt for healing, but I just can't find the historical record.  Last but not least there is a paper that talks about NaCl and pain management in wounds -and that is down there too with the other web references.

From a microbiology point of view, very high salt concentrations are lethal to almost all organisms, except for a few salt loving bacteria and fungi, the halophiles.  None of these, that I know, are pathogenic, but really high concentrations of salt in your wounds would damage the tissue and not promote healing.

Bottom line, I can't find a good reference for you.  So it goes...

Answer 2

You put it on a wound.  How it works is the salt concentration is too high for bacteria to survive hence prevents infection.