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Honey seems to have almost magical properties to heal burns, if it’s applied immediately after being burned.

When I was little, I fell against the red hot wood stove, landed with my hand directly on it, it adhered to the hot metal... actually got stuck to the hot metal so that I had to peel my hand off the glowing stove. When I did, looking at my hand in profile, the palm and inside of the fingers were burned absolutely flat.

My mother ran and got a jar of honey and put it on my hand immediately... the pain was incredible, and I wanted to put my hand under running water, but she absolutely forbade it. She said I had to leave it on 30 minutes, and then, she said according to tradition you were supposed to let a cat lick it off, but it was fine if I licked it off. The pain was subsiding a little after awhile, but it still hurt tremendously. When 30 minutes add past, it’d subsided a fraction more, but even the pressure of my tongue licking the honey off stung as if my tongue were made of thistles. I favored and protected my hand the rest the day, and the pain was still great, but every few hours it seemed to be subsiding a fraction.

My hand never did blister, even though it literally fried like a steak dropped into a hot dry pan. The next morning my hand was still stinging and red, but it was like my palm had had a severe sunburn. In two more days, it was like it never happened.

I also had an instance of an extreme all over sunburn when I was a child, and similarly, applying honey seem to make the burn vanish over night.

Over the years I’ve applied it to burns, and experience as shown me, if you run cold water over the burn to soothe it before applying the honey, it indeed seems to interfere with whatever magic the honey brings to the healing process. There was also an instance when I was burned while at work, and no honey was available, and I applied grape jam to the burn, thinking that sweetness or sugar had something to do with it... and it actually did seem to help significantly, just not with the miraculous rapid turn around that seems to come with applying honey.

I have heard it’s also effective with ulcers that are stubborn to heal, and I’ve read that Roman battle physicians of ancient times mixed honey with wine to flush out soldiers’ wounds, and that they adopted this remedy from the Egyptians.

Two natural remedies that are verified beyond question, in my mind, are live garlic for inner complaints, and the application of honey for outer complaints. Seriously.