Cave paintings from more than 3 @,@ 500 years ago document burns and their management . The earliest Egyptian records on treating burns describe dressings prepared with milk from mothers of baby boys , and the 1500 BCE Edwin Smith Papyrus describe treatments using honey and the salve of resin . Many other treatments have been used over the ages , including the use of tea leaves by the Chinese documented to 600 BCE , pig fat and vinegar by Hippocrates documented to 400 BCE , and wine and myrrh by Celsus documented to 100 CE . French barber @-@ surgeon Ambroise Paré was the first to describe different degrees of burns in the 1500s . Guillaume Dupuytren expanded these degrees into six different severities in 1832 .