Can burn scars be avoided by repeated scraping? Chuck Yeager's autobiography has a chapter on how he got severe face burns in an accident and how an unconventional treatment helped him avoid scars. He says that the scars were repeatedly scraped off in a very painful procedure until the skin heals without scars. The procedure must be applied very soon after the burn, before the skin has properly healed with scars. I couldn't find any references to such a procedure in the sources I searched. Does it really exist? What kind of a success rate does it have?

Researching this on the web seems to indicate that the process is called "Daily dermal debridement"

It appears that wound debridement is a treatment used to remove dead flesh to reduce infection specifically. This seems reasonable sensible. And it appears debridement has been used to treat burns for some time. Indeed - apparently

> Manual debridement, often done by nurses or burn care technicians after wound cleansing, involves the scraping or pulling off of loose nonviable skin

The other question is whether it could be used as an option to reduce scarring. Debridement does appear to reduce scarring according to some papers. And some sites recommend it as a treatment to reduce scarring.

All the above is a _little_ vague as I am far from a medical expert, but I think it lays out what treatment appears to have been used, and that it is used to treat scarring. It appears Chuck was offered and took a form of regular manual debridement.