The medical procedure of removing dead, damaged, or infected tissue from a wound or burn to promote healing; also spelled 'debridement.'
From French 'débridement,' derived from 'débride' (to unbridle or remove), which comes from 'de-' (remove) and 'bride' (bridle/restraint). The term was adopted into English medical terminology in the 19th century.
Debridement is an ancient practice — maggot therapy (using sterile fly larvae) was used for centuries to naturally debride wounds, and modern medicine has rediscovered this technique because those maggots are genuinely better at removing only dead tissue than some surgical methods!
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