It is well known that whether or not thermal injury of tissue occurs depends critically on both tissue temperature and the duration of elevated temperature. Thermal injury can be well modelled by the Arrhenius integral. The Arrhenius parameters used to model thermal injury of the skin, cornea and retina, result in a highly non-linear (i.e. very strong) dependence on temperature and a relatively weak dependence on the duration of elevated temperature (or pulse duration for laser exposure). We present a number of examples of computer model and experimental threshold data where the trends can be understood on the basis of the strong non-linearity of thermal injury with temperature.
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