Is licking a wound or applying saliva to it a good way to heal it?

In nature, many animals have the behavior of licking their wounds to heal themselves. There is no other way, they have no hospitals or doctors, so they can only rely on themselves.

So, as a higher animal, can humans also lick wounds or apply saliva as a method of healing?

Image source: Wikipedia

01 Can saliva heal wounds?

There are two main reasons why saliva is believed to have healing properties: one is that it can fight infection , and the other is that it can stop bleeding .

The professional term for saliva is saliva. It has to be admitted that saliva has very powerful functions, but its most basic functions are digestion, solvent, protection and moisturizing . This is also the fundamental meaning of saliva as a "family member" of the oral cavity. It exists to perform the basic function of the oral cavity - eating. Digestion, that is, the role of salivary amylase, is related to eating; solvent, that is, dissolving food, helps taste buds to play a role in taste, which is related to eating; protection and moisturizing, that is, protecting tissues and organs against dehydration, while making their surfaces moist and smooth, which is conducive to completing chewing, swallowing and other actions, is still related to eating.

In addition to the basic functions, saliva has some other functions, such as cleaning, diluting and buffering, sterilizing and antibacterial, promoting blood coagulation, etc. In terms of its sterilizing and antibacterial, and promoting blood coagulation functions, saliva seems to have a healing effect.

02 Healing is not as simple as imagined

Although it is true that saliva has bactericidal, antibacterial and blood coagulation functions, how can we say that? When saliva is used as a healing medicine, it always feels like a drop in the bucket!

First of all, what is the main component of saliva? It is water! The proportion of water in saliva is 99.4% . Although there are more than one kind of bactericidal and antibacterial substances in saliva, the content of bactericidal and antibacterial substances in a mouthful of saliva is really negligible. It is also a hooligan to talk about the efficacy without considering the dosage, right?

Secondly, although there are procoagulants in saliva, the extent to which they shorten the clotting time is related to the ratio of blood to saliva. Studies have found that when the ratio of blood to saliva is 1:2, the clotting time is shortened the most.

Therefore, if you want to use saliva to kill bacteria and promote blood coagulation for a larger wound, how much saliva should be used? As for a small wound, as long as it is guaranteed not to be infected, it will heal without applying anything.

In addition, saliva contains not only antibacterial and antimicrobial substances, but also bacteria (of many types and in large quantities). Therefore, using saliva to heal wounds is not worth the cost!

03 The bactericidal and antibacterial effects of saliva are not the same as the bactericidal and antibacterial effects of wound healing.

Although saliva does contain bactericidal and antibacterial substances, the purpose of these substances is not to kill all bacteria, but to keep them in a certain balance. In other words, bactericidal and antibacterial substances and bacteria actually coexist for a long time; the bactericidal and antibacterial substances used to heal wounds are to be able to completely exclude bacteria from the wound, and this process can only be done quickly, otherwise the outcome is likely to be failure.

Do you still believe the myth that oral medicine can harm your body?