BACKWOODS SURGERY BACKWOODS SURGERY & MEDICINE BY CHARLES STUART MOODY, M. D. MCMX OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY _Entered at Stationer's Hall, London, Eng. All rights reserved_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. How to Treat Fractures, Sprains and Dislocations 9 II. Caring for Burns, Cuts, Drowning, and Minor Accidents 29 III. Medical Treatment of Camp Diseases 51 IV. Serpent Wounds and Their Treatment 73 The Camper's Medicine Chest 93 HOW TO TREAT FRACTURES, SPRAINS AND DISLOCATIONS Backwoods Surgery and Medicine CHAPTER I HOW TO TREAT FRACTURES, SPRAINS AND DISLOCATIONS Several years ago I stood beside a cot in a hunter's cabin in the heart of the Bitter Root Mountains in Idaho, after a three days' ride, and watched a valuable young life go out as the result of an unattended compound fracture of the thigh. At another time I amputated a leg to prevent the spread of gangrene from a simple cut across the instep while the camper was splitting wood, an accident which, properly treated, would have resulted at most only in a slight inconvenience. Once again, I transformed my boat into a funeral barge and conveyed a young man who had only been in the water three minutes back to his sorrowing parents dead, because his companions were ignorant of how to resuscitate him. These and many other instances that have come under my observation of the sacrifice of lives from trivial causes, owing to a lack of knowledge, have impressed me with the value of a few suggestions on how to treat the commoner injuries and diseases that may befall those who seek recreation in the remote wilds. The rules will necessarily be brief and from the nature of things easily followed. The woods loafer should learn them and be prepared whenever the occasion arises. Works on first aid, written ostensibly for the guidance of the laymen, are apt to presuppose a far greater supply of surgical necessities than the hunter cares to burden himself with. It is one thing to apply surgical measures, having at hand a well-filled emergency bag, and quite another to render the same assistance with nothing to depend upon but your native adaptability. My intention is to tell in the plainest and simplest manner possible how to render intelligent assistance to an injured comrade, using only the fewest appliances and those of the most primitive character. These hints are the result of over twenty years of life in the West, in mining camps, cow camps, logging camps, and in the heart of the mountains, where people did not have forethought enough to provide themselves with even a bandage, many times hundreds of miles from where such things could be obtained.