First aid in illness and injury; Medicine, Popular
The tendency is to work too fast. The movement should be about as
fast as a man breathes, the object being to simulate the ordinary
respiratory movements as nearly as may be. While this is being done
another person may grasp the tongue and pull it up and out of the
mouth, keeping time with the movements of the arms. When the patient
begins to show signs of life wrap him well in hot blankets, place hot
stones at his feet, and administer hot water, brandy, or strong hot
coffee.
As before suggested, the efforts at restoration should be persisted in
for a long time, until either success rewards your efforts or the body
becomes quite cold and rigid. It may be that there is a little spark of
life left and you may fan it into flame after hours of effort.
There are many minor accidents for which it is well to be prepared. For
example, to remove a fish hook: Do not try to pull it back; push it on
through, file or break off the barb and it can be removed readily.
To remove foreign bodies from the eye: First cocainize the eye by
dropping a few drops of a solution made by dissolving one of the
cocaine tablets in a half teaspoonful of water, then turn the lid back
over a match telling the person to look down at the same time, and
brush the substance off with a soft cloth. If it is under the lower lid
place your forefinger on his cheek just beneath the eye, pull down, and
tell him to look up. If it adheres to the eyeball, as in the case of a
cinder or a small piece of steel, after cocainizing the eye remove with
a sharp knife by brushing.
Insects sometimes crawl into the ear and make a lot of commotion. Place
the patient on his side with that ear uppermost and pour plenty of warm
water into the ear. By plenty I mean several quarts. The bug will crawl
out or be washed out by the returning stream of water.
Burns well characterized toothache as "Thou hell of a' diseases." If
the tooth has a cavity (as it probably has), a small crystal of cocaine
dropped dry into the cavity and covered with a little pledget of cotton
will give immediate relief.
For bleeding from the nose, place a pledget of cotton in each nostril,
lay the patient on his face, and pour cold water over the back of the
neck. Leave the cotton there for several hours. The idea is that the
fibrin in the blood becomes entangled in the fiber of the cotton and
sets up a clot that seals the bleeding surface, while the cold water
closes the blood supply by its action on the artery supplying the parts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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