Doomsday DefenseSection
Field Medicine
First aid and austere medicine when help is far away: bleeding control, wounds, fractures, cold and heat injuries, illness.
- Bleeding & Trauma
- Wound Care & Infection
- Fractures, Sprains & Splints
- Cold & Heat Injuries
- Bites, Stings & Poisoning
- Sanitation & Disease
- Medicinal Plants
Field notes
-
Heat Stroke vs. Heat Exhaustion: Know the Difference
Heavy sweating and clammy skin mean heat exhaustion: cool down. Hot red skin, 103°F+ and confusion mean heat stroke: a 911 emergency.
-
Recognizing and Treating Hypothermia
Shivering, confusion, fumbling hands and slurred speech mean the body is losing heat faster than it makes it. It can happen above 40°F if you're wet.
-
Snakebite First Aid: What to Do and What Not to Do
Get to antivenom fast, keep the bite still and clean, and mark the swelling. No tourniquet, no cutting, no sucking, no ice. The old methods hurt.
-
Stopping Severe Bleeding: Pressure, Packing, Tourniquet
A person can bleed to death in minutes. Firm direct pressure, packing deep wounds, and a tourniquet 2–3 inches above a limb wound save lives.
-
Frostbite: Signs and First Aid
Redness or pain, then white or grayish-yellow, firm or waxy, numb skin. Rewarm in warm (not hot) water, and never rub it or use direct heat.
In the library
-
Backwoods Surgery & Medicine
A 1910 physician's guide for campers far from help: fractures, burns, cuts, drowning, camp diseases, snakebite and the medicine chest.
-
Soap-Making Manual
A 1922 chemist's handbook on soap: fats and oils, lye, the boiling process, and testing and controlling the product.
-
Wild Medicinal Plants of the United States
A 1906 USDA catalog of wild plants then collected for the drug trade: names, range, habitat, the parts used and their market prices.