Final answer:
An open, infected surgical wound treated with irrigations and moist gauze dressings would most likely need to heal by tertiary intention, as the infection alters the normal healing process and requires the wound to be managed more intensively to promote healing.
Step-by-step explanation:
The treatment of an open, infected surgical wound often involves ensuring that the wound can heal properly through an appropriate healing process. In the student's question, the wound is being treated with irrigations and moist gauze dressings, which suggests that the wound would need to heal by secondary intention due to the open and infected nature. This process involves the wound healing from the bottom up and the sides inward with the formation of granulation tissue and eventually epithelial tissue over the top. Healing by tertiary intention, also referred to as delayed primary closure, is when a wound is intentionally left open due to contamination or infection and closed later once it is clean.
A wound that is treated in such a manner would not heal through the same process as an uninfected deep wound (which might heal by primary intention if the edges are brought together neatly), nor would it be classified as a black wound, which refers to a wound with a significant amount of necrotic tissue. Instead, the presence of infection alters the healing process and typically requires more intensive management to prevent the spread of infection and promote tissue repair. In summary, for the provided question, the answer would be that the wound must heal by tertiary intention.