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 MANUAL FOR BOY SCOUTS 
 
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 MPT HELP FORTHE INJURED 
 
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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
First aid for boys: 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031262052 
 
FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 A MANUAL FOR BOY SCOUTS AND FOR 
 OTHERS INTERESTED IN PROMPT HELP 
 FOR THE INJURED AND THE SICK 
 
 BY 
 
 NORMAN B. COLE, M.D. 
 
 AND 
 
 CLAYTON H. ERNST 
 
 DISTRICT SCOUT COMMISSIONER, 
 SECOND DISTRICT, BOSTON 
 
 WITH FIFTY-ONE DRAWINGS 
 BY WALT HARRIS 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 1917 
 

 V 
 
 k-ll\'^3'\ 
 
 Copyright. 1917, by 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
**S^t only how but luhy'* 
 
PREFACE 
 
 We have written this book especially for boys, but 
 that has not prevented us from trying to make it of 
 service to everyone who is interested in doing the right 
 thing for himself or for someone else in that tense 
 moment when injury or sudden sickness brings con- 
 fusion and pain. 
 
 In the first chapters we have considered the emerg- 
 encies that are most dangerous to life, such as shock, 
 bleeding, sunstroke, and heat exhaustion. The method 
 of grouping them in two classes makes it easy for 
 you to read symptoms and to tell without loss of pre- 
 cious moments what is the matter with the person who 
 needs your aid and what you should do for his com- 
 fort and safety. From those most important emerg- 
 encies the book goes on to consider accidents that 
 through neglect may have serious consequences. Un- 
 derstanding of these depends to no small degree on 
 thorough knowledge of more dangerous emergencies; 
 therefore they find their logical place in the second part 
 of the book. In the last chapters we consider the every- 
 day accidents which often enough are painful, but 
 which, though they need careful attention, are not 
 sufficiently serious to touch life itself. There are, of 
 necessity, a few inconsistencies in this general plan, 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 but the reader can, in every case, we believe, see the 
 reason for our grouping. 
 
 It is a pleasant duty to express our thanks to the 
 many physicians and Boy Scout officials to whom we 
 are indebted for valuable criticisms and suggestions. 
 Special appreciation belongs to Mr. Walt Harris for 
 his great patience and care in making his drawings not 
 only pleasing to the eye, but also accurate from the 
 viewpoint of first-aid technique. We feel deeply 
 grateful to Mr. James E, West, Chief Scout Execu- 
 tive, and to Mr. Franklin K. Mathiewg, for advice 
 and for generously given aid in developing the book. 
 We are also much indebted to Major Robert U. Pat- 
 terson of the American Red Cross, who in the midst 
 of almost overwheMJng duties has taken time to ex- 
 amine the inanuscript carefully and to give us valuable 
 suggestions. 
 
 N. B. C. 
 
 C. H. E. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It gives me real pleasure to say a word with ref- 
 erence to the book by Dr. Norman B. Cole and Mr. 
 Clayton H. Ernst. Perhaps I have had as large an 
 opportunity as anyone in the country to appreciate the 
 good that can be accomplished by making available in 
 simple language, within the reach of the boy, the 
 material included in this book entitled, "First Aid for 
 Boys." 
 
 My interest in this publication has been increased 
 since I have secured the report from the American 
 Red Cross Society to the elTect that it is sanely written 
 from the standpoint of what should be said to boys 
 and especially to young boys about the subjects 
 covered. 
 
 The wisdom of the authors in not attempting to 
 make this a complete treatise of the subjects covered 
 increases the value of the book from the standpoint 
 of, the boy interested in making himself efficient in 
 first aid work. 
 
 James E. West, 
 Chief Scout Executive, 
 Boy Scouts of America. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEK 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. A Handful of Signs i 
 
 II. What to Do 17 
 
 III. Shock and Fainting 22 
 
 IV. A Little About the Blood and More 
 
 About Bleeding 34 
 
 V. Sunstroke and Heat Exhaustion . . 54 
 VI. Concussion, Skull Fracture, Apoplexy, 
 Alcoholic Intoxication, and Epi- 
 lepsy 62 
 
 VII. Infection and "Staphy" 73 
 
 VIII. Burns and Frostbites 84 
 
 IX. Poisoning 91 
 
 X. Bandages and Carries loi 
 
 XI. Fractures and Dislocations .... 135 
 
 XII. Drowning and Artificial Respiration . 156 
 
 XIII. Minor Emergencies 168 
 
 First Aid Kits for Eight Boys ... 191 
 
 Index 193 
 
FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 
 
 One evening in May, 1915, three boys, on their 
 •way home after a fishing trip, were walking along a 
 railway track outside a small Ohio town. Just be- 
 yond a crossing they came upon a dark shape lying 
 beside the track. One of the three, a boy whose 
 pockets were always filled with "odds and ends," 
 pulled out an electric flash lamp and they saw by its 
 bright shaft of light that a man was stretched limply 
 on the embankment with his legs doubled under him 
 in an unnatural position. His face was deathly 
 pale, and he was bleedings slowly ; now and then he 
 seemed to fall into a doze, only to wake again and 
 moan and turn his head from side to side. He had 
 evidently been struck by the eight o'clock express. 
 
 The boys were not scouts and knew nothing of 
 first aid. Terror-stricken, their first imptdse was 
 to run^ — run anywhere to get away from the awful 
 sig^t. But something told them that they ot^ht to 
 
2 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 bring someone who knew what to do; and all three 
 of them ran toward town as fast as they could, 
 leaving the injured man alone. It was half a mile 
 to the nearest house. By the time they had told 
 their story, had routed out the country doctor and 
 had guided the whole party back to the sufferer, 
 he was dead. 
 
 The point is that these boys were not prepared for 
 the emergency and did not give what comfort they 
 might have given. It is possible that the man might 
 have lived. As it was, he died of injury and loss of 
 blood, and most of all from the shock that those 
 things brought on. 
 
 What Would You Do? 
 
 Suppose you change this story a bit. Instead of 
 191 5 make the date tomorrow; set the scene outside 
 your own town and start off down the track with 
 two other scouts. When you come to that poor man 
 lying there, will you know what to do, or will your 
 good turn go begging for lack of knowledge? 
 
 How will you check the bleeding? 
 
 Will you know that the man is in shock ? 
 
 How will you know it ? 
 
 What is shock ? 
 
 Can you explain it to a tenderfoot so that he will 
 understand it? Can you tell him just what treat- 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 3 
 
 ment to give the poor fellow at the crossing' while 
 the doctor is coming? 
 
 Stop reading right here, turn this book face down 
 and think just what you would do in an emergency 
 of that kind. 
 
 If you can answer those questions you may be 
 able to save a life tomorrow, as this boy did : 
 
 THE BOSTON TRAVELER, TUBS., FEB. 1, 1916 
 
 BOY SCOUT SAVES 
 LIFE OF FATHER 
 
 MEDINA, N. T., Feb. 1.— While fixing 
 an arc light in the power house of the 
 A. li. Swett Electrical Company, B. D. 
 Timmerman of East Centre street was 
 nearly shocked to death. His Jiand 
 touched a wire which was grounded. 
 The current jumped from the arc to his 
 head and he received the full charge of 
 2400 volts. 
 
 Edwin, his 12-year-oId son, who was 
 with him, rendered first aid as taught 
 him in the Boy Scouts, and then tele- 
 phoned for help. Mr. Timmerman was 
 revived. 
 
 If you can't answer those questions; if you can't 
 remember how to stop bleeding or what the differ- 
 ence is between shock and apoplexy or between sun- 
 stroke and heat exhaustion; if you don't know 
 whether to warm and stimulate a patient or to cool 
 him and keep him quiet, you might just as well fol- 
 low the example of those three boys in Ohio and run 
 away the next time you see someone hurt. 
 
4 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 It's like being at bat and not knowing whether to 
 run to first base or to third. By the time you have 
 sat down and studied the matter out in the rule book 
 the coach will have released you forever and your 
 nickname will be Duffer. 
 
 We believe there are many scouts and scoutmas- 
 ters who find it hard to understand and to remember 
 those things. Let's sit down and talk them over and 
 see if we can make them plain to you. 
 
 Diagnosis' 
 
 There are many injuries from which a patient 
 will die very soon if the right thing is not done — 
 shock, bleeding (hemorrhage), sunstroke and so on. 
 They allow you no time for running to town to get 
 the doctor. 
 
 How are you going to tell what the matter is? 
 You cannot see sunstroke or heat exhaustion or 
 shock as you can a cut or a broken bone. You must 
 reason the thing out, and, furthermore, you must 
 do it quickly. 
 
 There is a word that doctors use, "diagnosis." 
 It is made up of the two Greek words "by means of" 
 and "to know," and it means, as Webster's Dic- 
 tionary says, "the act or science of recognizing the 
 presence of disease by its signs or symptoms, and 
 deciding as to- its character." 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 
 
 Five Signs 
 
 Doctors have many signs for which they look — 
 very many — and you cannot know them all; but 
 there are five things that you can easily remember 
 to look for and by means of which you can de- 
 
 Q ^ yyreamma 
 
 Govisciousness 
 
 cide what the trouble is. There is one thing for 
 each finger on your hand — just a handful of 
 signs. 
 
 Imagine that you have discovered by the side of 
 the road a man who plainly is sick and yet is liot 
 bleeding and does not seem to have any wounds or 
 
6 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 any broken bones. First, merely by looking at him, 
 you notice whether or not he is conscious. As 
 you read this, stick up your thumb and call it con- 
 sciousness. Next, still only looking, you notice his 
 color; connect that with your pointer finger. Then 
 notice his breathing — middle finger. 
 
 That is all you can find out merely by looking. 
 NoW feel for his pulse and think of your ring fin- 
 ger. Last, for the little finger, investigate the pa- 
 tient's temperature ; that is, find out whether his 
 body is too hot or too cold. 
 
 There is your handful of signs by means of which 
 you can discover or "diagnose" your sick man's 
 condition. Dip a fine-pointed pen lightly in ink 
 and write the signs on the finger nails of your left 
 hand — ^thumb "Con" for consciousness ; pointer fin- 
 ger "Col" for color ; middle finger "B" for breath- 
 ing; ring finger "P" for pulse; little finger "T" for 
 temperature. 
 
 Before you can tell whether or not any of these 
 signs indicate a bad condition, you must know what 
 they are like in health. It's as if your small brother 
 should ask you to correct his sum in addition. Sup- 
 pose it is 3 -|- 7-1-2. Before you can decide whether 
 his answer is right or wrong you yourself must 
 know that the correct answer is 12. So, for exam- 
 ple, with the heart rate, which is counted by feeling 
 of the pulse, as we shall show you presently ; before 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 7 
 
 you decide that the rate is too fast or too slow you 
 must know what the normal or usual rate is. 
 
 In Good Health 
 
 Take this handful of guideposts then, and let us 
 see what they should show when a person is in 
 good health. Ordinarily you expect a man to be 
 fully conscious (thumb) all the time except when 
 he is asleep. That is, he knows what is going on 
 round him, can talk, move, hear, see, smell and f eeL 
 
 The color (pointer finger) of his skin, as you 
 know, is neither pale nor very red, but of a pinkish 
 tint. 
 
 Some time when your father is reading his eve- 
 ning paper, get out your watch and see how many 
 times a minute he breathes (middle finger). You 
 will find that it is about fifteen or twenty and you 
 will see that his chest rises and falls plainly, yet not 
 very much. 
 
 Next take your own pulse (ring finger). Do 
 you know how? Get a crowd of your friends to- 
 gether some time and ask them to take their own 
 pulses. Watch them do it and you will have a good 
 laugh, for no two of them will do it alike unless 
 they have been taught how, and more than likely 
 only one or two will do it right. Here's the right 
 way : turn your left hand palm up ; place the tips of 
 
8 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 three fingers of your right hand on the thumb edge 
 of your left arm just above the wrist and move them 
 about until you feel the pulse with all three tips. 
 Never use the thumb in feeling for the pulse. It 
 has a fairly large artery in it and when you put it 
 against anything you feel the pulse in your own 
 
 %:jf±3{amf 
 
 CeftJfaKcf 
 
 Ofletfuxi ofdaitma f^xlse 
 
 thumb. By using your thumb you can often get a 
 perfectly good pulse out of an iron lamp post. 
 
 Count the pulse in your own wrist and in several 
 of your friends' wrists. You will find that unless 
 you have been exercising, the rate is about seventy 
 to eighty a minute. It is commonly said to be sev- 
 enty-two. 
 
 As to temperature (little finger), you need not 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 9 
 
 know very much. You may never have one of the 
 delicate little thermometers that doctors use, but 
 you can usually tell by feeling of a person's skin 
 whether he is colder or warmer than he ought to be. 
 Of course, if he has been in a very hot or a very 
 cold place his skin for some time will be too hot or 
 too cold; but you will make allowances for that. 
 The doctor's thermometer, held three minutes under 
 the tongue with the lips shut but not the teeth, 
 would show you that the normal or usual tempera- 
 ture is very close to 98.6° Fahrenheit. 
 
 Now you have a handful of good or normal con- 
 ditions. Consciousness — present ; color — pinkish ; 
 respiration — moderately deep and fifteen or twenty 
 to the minute ; pulse — seventy to eighty beats to the 
 minute ; temperature of the body — 98.6° Fahrenheit. 
 
 Diagram i 
 
 The-signs 
 
 Normal 
 
 I Consciousness . . 
 
 Present 
 
 2 Color 
 
 Pink 
 
 
 
 3 Respiration 
 
 (breathing) 
 
 Quiet; about 15 to the minute 
 
 4 Pulse : . . . 
 
 70-80 to the minute. Varies with 
 persons 
 
 5 Temperature . . . 
 
 98.6° Fahrenheit 
 
lo FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 In Bad Health 
 
 There are two general kinds of conditions when 
 the normal signs are changed. In one — and this 
 was the condition of the man injured at the cross- 
 ing — the whole body, with all its activities, seems to 
 be depressed. The person is dazed or sleepy, but 
 seldom unconscious; his color is pale, for the cir- 
 culation is weak and the blood either has been lost 
 or has retreated to the big vessels in the interior 
 of the body, leaving the surface bloodless and white. 
 His breathing is shallow, that is, he takes only a lit- 
 tle air into his lungs at a breath, consequently his 
 chest moves up and down but little — perhaps so little 
 that it looks as if he were not breathing at all — ^and 
 because he takes in so little air at a breath he must 
 breathe oftener. That is why the respiration rate 
 goes up from fifteen to twenty-five or so. 
 
 The pulse rate and the respiration rate are like 
 two scouts on their fourteen-mile hike — they. keep 
 together. If the respiration increases in rate, so 
 does the pulse ; when one is slow, the other is also 
 slow. So here we expect to find the pulse rapid, and 
 we do. It rises to ninety or a hundred or a hun- 
 dred and twenty, and you find that the pulse beat 
 at the wrist is weak. You see the heart is really 
 a pump, and a very successful one. If, when you 
 blow up the tires of your bicycle, you force the 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS ii 
 
 pump handle down to the limit each time, you need 
 take only a few strokes before the tires are hard. 
 But if you push the handle down only half way each 
 time it will take twice as many strokes to get the 
 same amount of air into the tires. Just so with 
 the heart. If it is weak it must beat oftener than 
 usual to get the same amount of blood round to the 
 brain and the other organs; and so a weak heart 
 beats faster than a strong one. 
 
 Last, the temperature is low — ^just as there is less 
 heat in the stove when the fire burns low. When 
 the vital functions of the body are not working "up 
 to scratch" less heat is produced and the body is 
 actually less warm. The variation can be only 
 very slight, however, for the body is so delicately 
 built that a change of only two or three degrees up 
 or down from the normal makes you feel very sick. 
 If your temperature should drop at this moment to 
 95° or 94° all the blankets in the world would not 
 keep you warm and you would soon actually die of 
 cold. When the skin is pale, the breathing shallow 
 and rapid and the pulse rapid and weak, the tem- 
 perature is always lower than normal. 
 
 This weakened, depressed state of these vital 
 functions is found in such conditions as fainting, 
 shock from any cause, severe bleeding and exhaus- 
 tion of all kinds, including heat exhaustion. These 
 together we shall call group A. 
 
12 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Diagram 2 
 
 The siems 
 
 Group A — Depressed Conditions : 
 Shock, Fainting, Heat Exhaus- 
 tion, Hemorrhage 
 
 
 I Consciousness . . 
 
 Present, but often dulled. In Faint- 
 ing, absent for a short period 
 
 2 Color 
 
 Pale 
 
 
 
 3 Respiration 
 
 (breathing) 
 
 Shallow: perhaps somewhat rapid, 
 16-25 to the minute 
 
 4 Pulse 
 
 Weak, "thready," rapid; 80-130 to 
 the minute 
 
 5 Temperature . . . 
 
 Low: 96°-98.6°; skin cool, with 
 clammy sweat 
 
 Suppose now that some time you find a sick man 
 with opposite signs. For example, he is wholly 
 unconscious; that is, you cannot wake him up by 
 touching him or by speaking loudly to him or by 
 shaking him gently ; his face and skin are red, some- 
 times even purple ; his respiration is slow, deep and 
 noisy, as if he were snoring very busily; his pulse 
 rate, as you expect when the respiration is slow, is 
 also slow and the pulse full and strong at the wrist ; 
 and lastly, his skin feels warm. You would know 
 at once that the trouble was different ; that this man 
 was sick in a different way from the first patient, 
 and that probably the first aid treatment would be 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 
 
 13 
 
 different too. You would be right. It is easy to im- 
 agine a case in which the wrong treatment would 
 mean the death of the patient and the right treat- 
 ment a quick return to better health. 
 
 Doctors call his slow, full pulse the "head" pulse 
 because it means that the brain has been affected in 
 some way. So this second group of changed or 
 abnormal signs points to what we may call the "head 
 injuries." They are such conditions as concussion, 
 epilepsy, apoplexy, skull fracture, alcoholic intoxi- 
 cation and sunstroke, and they make up group B. 
 
 Diagram 3 
 
 The si?ns 
 
 Group B — Head Injuries: Concus- 
 sion, Skull Fracture, Apoplexy, 
 Epilepsy, Alcoholic Intoxication, 
 Sunstroke 
 
 
 I Consciousness . . 
 
 Dulled; often absent for hours 
 
 2 Color 
 
 Flushed 
 
 
 
 3 Respiration . 
 
 (breathing) 
 
 Deep, noisy ; perhaps somewhat slow, 
 13-16 to the minute 
 
 4 Pulse 
 
 Full, bounding, slow, 50-80 to the 
 minute 
 
 5 Temperature . . . 
 
 High; 98.6°-! 13° (Sunstroke) ; skin 
 hot; either sweaty or dry (Sun- 
 stroke) 
 
 We are putting a good deal of emphasis on these 
 changes in the five signs because if you will remem- 
 
14 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 ber these things you will find it easy to decide, in 
 a general way, what is the matter with any sick per- 
 son you may come across ; once you know that, you 
 know also what to do for him. And that may mean 
 the saving of someone's life — surely the finest thing 
 a scout can db. 
 
 To Make You Remember 
 
 If you can't remember these changes easily, 
 try this way: let your left hand represent the de- 
 
 ^ 
 
 ?aiktw^ 
 
 SSdocfi 
 GxhausbuM. 
 
 c n.oup "B" 
 
 Sunstroke 
 Gancussvon. 
 dpopTexb] 
 Cpi/cpsvj 
 
 pressed conditions, or group A; on the nails write 
 the signs. Take your fine-pointed pen again and 
 on the thumb nail, which represents consciousness, 
 write "dull"; on the pointer nail, which stands for 
 color, write "pale"; middle nail, "rapid, shallow"; 
 ring nail, "rapid, weak" ; little nail, "low." Then on 
 
A HANDFUL OF SIGNS 15 
 
 your palm stick a gummed label with the conditions 
 in which these signs are ''found — namely, fainting, 
 shock, bleeding (hemorrhage), exhaustion. On the 
 other hand put the head injuries and their signs. 
 If you find it hard to write with your left hand swap 
 good turns with some other scout: write on his 
 finger nails and then have him write on yours. 
 
 Now hold up your hands in front of you, palms 
 down, read the signs from your finger nails, and 
 see if you can tell in what conditions these signs are 
 found. Or hold your hands palms up, read the con- 
 ditions from the label, and try to tell what signs 
 you will find in them. Work it with the other 
 scout and make a game of . it, counting one for 
 every correct answer and taking of? one for every 
 ; mistake. The game is ten. 
 
 Now let's roll figures i, 2 and 3 into one and 
 look at this whole chapter all together. Do not 
 read the later chapters till you feel that you have 
 learned these things perfectly, for they make the 
 way very easy when we come to the separate sub- 
 jects. Don't be guilty of putting the cart in front 
 of the horse. Diagnosis comes before treatment all 
 the way through the study of medicine. It is plain 
 that before we attempt to treat a patient we must 
 first know how to go about finding out what the 
 trouble is with him. 
 
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 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
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CHAPTER II 
 
 WHAT TO DO 
 
 This is going to be a very short chapter, but it's 
 just as important as it is short. It will tell you 
 something in a general way about first aid treatment 
 of sick people — the principles that hold good in all 
 kinds of emergencies. 
 
 You Find a Sick Man 
 
 Suppose you find a man on the road whose signs 
 fall into group A — he is drowsy, pale, and cold, with 
 weak, rapid respiration and pulse. Because he is 
 cold you must warm him; and you must get him 
 wider awake and make his heart and breathing ap- 
 paratus work harder if you. can. Is that plain? It 
 must be, for it is common sense. 
 
 The simplest way of warming him is to wrap him 
 in warm clothes — blankets if you can get them. 
 In cold weather see that they are warmed by being 
 held in front of a fire before you put them on the 
 patient. Lacking blankets, any clothes will do. Be 
 sure to put them under him as well as on top of him, 
 
 17 
 
1 8 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 for the ground is always colder than the body. If 
 he is conscious and can swallow, you can warm him 
 inside by giving him something hot to drink; it 
 doesn't make much difference what it is, so long as 
 it is really hot. 
 
 Sometimes nothing except this warmth is neces- 
 sary to make a man feel much more comfortable. 
 But it is always a good idea to give him a stimu- 
 lant too — some drug to make his heart beat 
 stronger and to make him breathe more deeply. 
 
 Stimulants 
 
 The best stimulant is aromatic spirits of ammonia. 
 Say that big name over to yourself till you can re- 
 member it (better than a boy who asked the drug- 
 gist for "automatic spirits"). The dose is half a 
 teaspoonful (thirty drops) in half a glass of water, 
 and it may be repeated once after fifteen minutes. 
 This is by far the best stimulant and should be in 
 every first aid kit. 
 
 The next best stimulant is hot black cofifee, which 
 contains the drug caffeine. This is more common 
 than the aromatic spirits of ammonia and has the 
 advantage of being a warming agent as well as a 
 stimulant. Each cup of strong coffee contains 
 about two grains of caffeine, which is the usual 
 amount that the doctors give to sick people with 
 bad hearts ; so you see what a powerful drug it is. 
 
WHAT TO DO 
 
 19 
 
 That is the reason why any coffee is bad for grow- 
 ing persons and why grown people should use only 
 a little of it. 
 
 The third drug used as a stimulant, and a very 
 poor one too, is alcohol. It is really no stimulant at 
 all, but gives some of the same effects. It makes 
 
 K^iistSYace 
 
 OfwrJ sioce 
 
 the sick man feel better for a little while because it 
 burns his throat as it goes down and after a while 
 it makes his skin feel warm; but its effect is brief 
 and is always followed by some degree of depres- 
 sion. It is usually given in the form of brandy or 
 whisky, both of which are about half alcohol. If 
 you cannot get either of the other stimulants, use 
 one to three teaspoonfuls of alcoholic drink and do 
 not repeat it. 
 
20 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 You Find Another Sick Man 
 
 Suppose you find another man ; this time the signs 
 fall into group B — the head injuries. He is uncon- 
 scious, very red, with a warm skin, breathes deeply, 
 slowly, and noisily, and has a slow, full pulse. Here 
 again you can reason out the treatment easily. It 
 would be foolish to think of giving him a stimulant ; 
 he is unconscious and cannot swallow; the fluid 
 would probably run down his windpipe and choke 
 him. Instead of helping the poor man you would 
 drown him. Since his body is already too warm, 
 you will not try to warm him more, but will get him 
 into a comfortably cool place, out of the sunshine, 
 and perhaps bathe his face and hands with cool 
 water. Above all other things, keep him quiet. Get 
 him as far away from noise and bright light as you 
 can. 
 
 To sum up: the general treatment for group 
 A is warmth inside and out and stimulation; for 
 group B, a cool place and perfect quiet. 
 
 Always Remember This 
 
 Before we end this chapter we want to say one 
 thing to you, friend scout, that you must never 
 forget. It is this : remember that your duty to your 
 patient is only half done when you have finished 
 your first aid treatment. The second aid and all 
 
WHAT TO DO 21 
 
 the rest of the treatment must come from a real 
 doctor, who knows what he is about. Make your 
 man comfortable, overcome the emergency, then 
 do not rest till he is in the hands of a physician; 
 for the man with the M. D. after his name knows 
 far more about doctoring than any first aid book 
 ever written can teach. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 SHOCK AND FAINTING 
 
 Mother Nature is a wise, kindly old soul, who 
 has planned things very wonderfully for us. If 
 we are too warm, she makes us sweat and grow 
 cooler. If we are too cold, she teaches us to gen- 
 erate new heat by shivering. If we put our finger 
 by mistake into the fire or into boiling water she 
 orders certain nerves to tell us of it in about one- 
 tenth of a second ; and we usually know enough to 
 pull the finger out of harm's way. 
 
 But in spite of Mother Nature's care acci- 
 dents will happen ; we fall and break our bones, or 
 get badly burned, or lose much blood from a 
 cut. 
 
 What does she do for us then, when the pain is 
 so great that it seems impossible for us to bear 
 it another moment? She can't make that broken 
 bone whole again in a minute, or replace the skin 
 that the fire has burned away, or manufacture a 
 pint of new blood on the spot. 
 
 Says she, "What can't be cured must be en- 
 
SHOCK AND FAINTING 
 
 23 
 
 dured," and sets out to help us bear the pain. She 
 can't immediately heal the wound, and she can't 
 
 CJitcmerJioJbure saws : 
 
 yj told Mou so ! 
 
 do much with the nerve that is carrying the 
 sensation of pain to the brain; but the brain itself 
 — why — she believes she can fix that so that it won't 
 feel the pain so keenly, perhaps not at all. And 
 
24 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 she goes to work and does succeed more or less in 
 dulling the brain. 
 
 That explains why you sometimes see persons 
 who, though badly hurt, do not seem to feel much 
 pain. They lie quietly, do not move much and pay 
 little attention to what goes on about them. Per- 
 haps they don't even answer when you speak to 
 them; but when you repeat the question several 
 times they answer slowly and weakly, but correctly. 
 They are not unconscious, only dull. 
 
 SHOCK 
 
 That arrangement of Mother. Nature's is a great 
 comfort to the injured man. The only trouble 
 is that the brain is the master of the body and when 
 it becomes dull (the doctors call it "depressed") 
 and "lies down on the job," the other organs of 
 the body also will shirk their work. Some of these 
 other organs, the heart for example, are needed just 
 as much as the brain is to keep the body alive. You 
 can see how, when the brain is more and more de- 
 pressed and the other vital organs along with it, 
 that all the processes which keep the body alive 
 are more and more hindered and weakened. The 
 body is like a great machine slowing down ; it goes 
 slower and slow-er and s-1-o-w-e-r — and stops. 
 When a man does that we call it dying. 
 
 Often, when a man is badly injured, Nature tries 
 
SHOCK AND FAINTING 25 
 
 so hard to keep him from suffering pain that she 
 depresses his brain too much, and, like the machine, 
 the man stops. When this happens after an injury 
 you cannot say that the man died from the injury 
 directly. He really died from the depressed condi- 
 tion of brain and vital organs brought on by the 
 accident. 
 
 This drowsy, depressed, half dead condition is 
 shock, sometimes called surgical shock. It 
 may be so slight that we say the patient is only 
 "shaken up." Or it may be more serious and make 
 him drowsy and dull and pale and cold. And 
 then it may easily be serious enough to cause death. 
 
 A few illustrations will make shock plainer to 
 you. 
 
 Slight Injury 
 
 Mrs. Hall, a farmer's wife, started "crosslots" 
 to take a pan of hot biscuits to a sick neighbor. On 
 the way the path led down a steep slope. Here Mrs. 
 Hall tripped, fell heavily and rolled some little dis- 
 tance. When she got up her right wrist pained 
 terribly and she felt "all shaken up." She man- 
 aged to reach the neighbor's house but was glad 
 to get into a chair. You would have said that she 
 was exhausted. She sat there with her head rest- 
 ing on the back of the chair and her eyes closed; 
 she was sweating profusely and her skin was pale 
 
26 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 and cold, yet she did not faint. They put her wrist 
 on a pillow and gave her hot peppermint water. 
 After a while she felt better and could be taken 
 to the doctor to have her wrist treated. 
 
 The pain of the broken wrist and the jouncing as 
 she rolled down the hill had caused a mild degree 
 of shock; the rest and the hot drink were enough 
 to overcome the condition of shock and make Mrs. 
 Hall feel better. 
 
 Severe Injury and Fright 
 
 One night, on a western railway, a great boulder 
 rolled down the mountain side, struck a heavy Pull- 
 man car, knocked it oflf the track, rolled it over and 
 broke it open. Fortunately, no one was seriously 
 hurt except one middle aged man, who seemed at 
 first to be dead. He lay sprawled on the ground; 
 he was pale, and did not seem to be breathing or to 
 be conscious. A doctor looked him over carefully 
 and found that he had a broken leg and a cut on 
 the cheek; neither injury however seemed very seri- 
 ous. The doctor spoke loudly to him and touching 
 him on the shoulder shook him a little. The man 
 opened his eyes slowly, whispered something, and 
 shut his eyes again. He was not dead then, but 
 in severe shock. Notice that you do not say "in 
 a shock" or "that a person is shocked." You al- 
 ways say that he is "in (the condition of) shock." 
 
SHOCK AND FAINTING 27 
 
 This man might have died if the doctor had not 
 immediately treated him for shock — even before 
 he attended to his broken leg. With the proper 
 treatment (which we shall presently describe) he 
 was soon out of danger and able to have his broken 
 leg set and his cheek dressed. The rule is : always 
 treat shock first except when the person is bleeding 
 severely; in that case your immediate duty is to 
 stop the hemorrhage. 
 
 Strong Emotion 
 
 A boy ran away to sea from his home in one 
 of the English south shore villages, leaving his old 
 widowed mother alone. For years she waited for 
 him to come back or to send word. No word ever 
 came. Every morning, because of the great love 
 and the great grief in her heart, she prayed for 
 the boy, and every night, because of her hope that 
 he might not be dead and might some day come 
 back, she set a light in the window for him. With 
 worry and grief and hard work she grew old and 
 thin and wrinkled. This went on for nine years. 
 Then one afternoon the door opened suddenly and 
 on the threshold stood her sailor boy. She rose 
 from her chair, speechless with joy, tottered a few 
 steps toward him and suddenly dropped dead on 
 the floor. Shock, and nothing else, had killed her. 
 
28 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 A Bird's Eye View of Shock 
 
 Now with those three examples in mind let's put 
 all we know of shock together in a few words, 
 
 Caiise 
 
 You never saw a caboose start off by itself and 
 go racing along the track all alone. It must have 
 an engine ahead of it. Shock is like a caboose. 
 It never gets started by itself ; there is always some- 
 thing ahead of it. That something may be a sud- 
 
 den, severe injury or a strong emotion. In the 
 first example above shock was due almost entirely 
 to the injury; in the second, to injury plus the 
 fright of being in a train wreck at night; in the 
 third, to nothing except pure joy. The commonesit 
 causes of shock are burns, bad fractures, all sorts 
 of sudden accidents, fear and joy. 
 
 Reading the Signs (Diagnosis) 
 
 We have spoken of shock as a depressed condi- 
 tion. That puts it at once in group A (see Chapter 
 
SHOCK AND FAINTING 29 
 
 I), and if you will count over your fingers you 
 Tfvill remember what signs you find in that group. 
 The patient is mentally drowsy, but when roused 
 answers questions clearly but weakly and shuts his 
 eyes again as if he were not strong enough to 
 hold them open; he is pale; he breathes rapidly — 
 20 to 30 times a minute, and very shallow, so that 
 you may have to look closely to see that he is 
 breathing at all; his pulse is weak and rapid, 100 
 to 130 a minute; his temperature is low and very 
 likely he is shivering, even though the day is warm ; 
 his skin is cold and probably covered with a cold 
 sweat. Beside all this, if you can see that the man 
 has been injured or know that he has had a great 
 fright or a great joy, you may be pretty sure that 
 your patient is in shock and you should treat him 
 for shock at once. 
 
 Treatment 
 
 Look back to Chapter II now and brush up on 
 the treatment of group A. Get your patient flat, 
 with no pillow under his head ; loosen tight clothes, 
 warm him and give him a good stimulant — aromatic 
 spirits of ammonia or strong hot coffee. Here cof- 
 fee is better, since both its heat and its caflfeine are 
 stimulants. Sometimes rubbing the arms and legs 
 gently toward the body will help the circulation; 
 but do not uncover them to do it. Keep him quiet, 
 
30 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 give him air and get the doctor. If there is great 
 bleeding you must treat that first, of course, but 
 in all other cases attend to shock first. 
 
 Warning 
 
 Now a word of warning. You have probably 
 heard of old people who "have had a shock" and 
 are paralyzed. That is the common way of say- 
 ing that they have suffered from apoplexy. When 
 you read about apoplexy in Chapter VI turn back 
 and read this chapter over again and see how dif- 
 ferent apoplexy and surgical shock are, and you 
 will never get the two mixed. Don't confuse sur- 
 gical shock with electric "shock," either. The pas- 
 sage of electricity through the body, if the current 
 is strong but not strong enough to kill the man at 
 once, will bring on surgical shock; but there again 
 the electricity is the engine after which, like the 
 caboose, comes shock. 
 
 FAINTING 
 
 Catise 
 
 There are many causes of fainting. Perhaps you 
 have read in the paper that when the parachute 
 failed to open, or when the lion sprang at his trainer, 
 women in the audience shrieked and fainted. A 
 hot, close room, hunger, pain, the sight of blood. 
 
SHOCK AND FAINTING 31 
 
 a sudden clap of thunder, an accident that you see 
 happening to others, a bad smell, being sick at your 
 stomach — all those things and many more are 
 causes of fainting. 
 
 Fainting is like shock because it belongs in group 
 A and the patient is cold and pale, often with a 
 cold sweat. It is unlike shock because it does not 
 necessarily follow an injury or intense emotion; 
 the pulse and breathing are little affected, and the 
 patient is completely unconscious, although not for 
 long. 
 
 Reading the Signs 
 
 The diagnosis is easy. The patient suddenly be- 
 comes pale ; falls, if he is standing, or slumps down 
 in his chair, and is completely unconscious. He 
 cannnot be roused until he "comes to" ; that may 
 be in half a minute or in several minutes. When 
 he does "come to" he is almost at once as well 
 again as he was before he fainted. 
 
 Treatment 
 
 What happens in fainting is that the big blood 
 vessels in the interior of the body dilate suddenly; 
 into them rushes the blood, leaving the brain with 
 so little that it cannot keep working — the power 
 is cut off from the dynamo. For the same reason 
 the face is pale. The reasonable thing to do is to 
 
32 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 turn the patient upside down and let the blood run 
 back to the head. Do this by laying him down, 
 with his head low and his feet high; loosen tight 
 clothing, sprinkle cold water on the face and chest 
 (don't pour it on the patient out of a bucket, but 
 dip your hand in the water and flip it in his face). 
 
 0\ea6 fow 
 "Sett (ua^ 
 
 and when he becomes conscious give him a stimu- 
 lant. Sometimes the smell of ammonia alone is 
 enough to "bring him to" (smelling salts, you know, 
 are mostly pur good friend aromatic spirits of am- 
 monia). If the patient is a woman get another 
 woman to loosen her clothes. 
 
 Sometimes a light slap on the cheek or the palm 
 will stimulate the patient. (We all can remember 
 
SHOCK AND FAINTING 33 
 
 being very much stimulated by certain slaps with 
 a slipper which did not injure us in the least.) 
 
 If the patient recovers quickly and you are sure 
 everything is all right you may not need to call a 
 doctor. Once in a while an attack like this may 
 not be due to simple fainting but to heart failure. 
 If you are not sure of yourself always get a doctor. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 Shock 
 
 1 Cause : Sudden or severe injury, strong emo- 
 
 tion. 
 
 2 Diagnosis : Belongs in group A. Patient dull, 
 
 pale and cold, with rapid, weak respiration 
 and pulse, and often a cold sweat. Patient 
 may shiver, even on a hot day. 
 
 3 Treatment: Warm and stimulate the patient 
 
 in quiet, warm place. No matter what the 
 injury, except bleeding, treat shock first. 
 
 Fainting 
 
 1 Cause: Many causes: bad air, sick stomach, 
 
 sickening sights or smells, fright, etc. 
 
 2 Diagnosis : Belongs in group A. Unconscious- 
 
 ness sudden and complete, patient very pale, 
 cold sweat, pulse and breathing may be un- 
 changed. 
 
 3 Treatment : Lower head, loosen clothing, stim- 
 
 ulate when conscious. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD AND MORE 
 ABOUT BLEEDING 
 
 If your scoutmaster should ask what the heart 
 is for, every one of you would think it about the 
 easiest question he could ask. You would probably 
 get ICO per cent, on the answer. With a smile you 
 would say, "It pumps the blood round the body." 
 Why, you have known that ever since you knew 
 you had a heart ! It seems queer to think of anyone 
 not knowing it. 
 
 But Shakespeare and Columbus didn't know it. 
 And when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620 
 they thought, as everyone else did then, that the 
 arteries were air pipes (that's what the word 
 "arteries" means) connected with the lungs, and 
 that the blood existed in the veins alone and moved 
 only a little, sometimes in one direction and some- 
 times in the other, never making a circuit. And 
 they thought that the heart was full of some strange 
 sort of life-giving substance different from blood. 
 
 Then in 1628 a man named William Harvey, 
 who was physician to the King of England, wrote 
 
 34 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 35 
 
 a big book in Latin and said that he had discovered 
 that the heart was really full of blood, which it 
 pumped out through the arteries and which came 
 back to it through the veins. 
 
 That caused a great rumpus, and many wise men 
 said that they had never heard of such a crazy 
 idea. But Harvey stuck to it and found others 
 who believed that he was right. 
 
 The upshot of it was that after long letters had 
 been written, all in solemn Latin, and when the 
 old doctor was safely in his grave with his wig 
 on, everybody came round to Harvey's ideas about 
 the circulation of the blood. 
 
 Not long after that someone put several mag- 
 nifying glasses together and made the first micro- 
 scope, with which men could actually see the blood 
 running through the veins and arteries. 
 
 And now no one doubts the circulation of the 
 blood for a minute, although the knowledge of it 
 is no older than the old houses in Plymouth and 
 Salem. 
 
 The Heart 
 
 To make any circulation possible there must be 
 pipes for the liquid and something to make it move 
 through them. In the body the blood vessels are the 
 pipes, the blood is the liquid and the heart is the 
 pump. 
 
36 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 The heart is a pear shaped organ as big as your 
 fist. It is made entirely of muscle, but is dififerent 
 from other muscles because it is hollow and is di- 
 vided into a right and a left side. The right side re- 
 ceives the blood that has just been round the body 
 
 Jkc jieart 
 
 v5tssi^ and 
 
 pOSLtiOK/ 
 
 r^W^. 
 
 I 
 
 €aiiAu\to\ 
 
 jjfinii) 
 
 and that has given up its oxygen and pumps it 
 through a special short circuit to the lungs, where it 
 takes up all the oxygen that it needs from the air 
 we have breathed in. Thus "stocked up" with 
 oxygen the blood returns to the left side, from which 
 it is pumped out to begin a new journey round the 
 body. 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 37 
 
 Arteries, Capillaries and Veins 
 
 The arteries, capillaries and veins are the pipes 
 through which the blood flows. The pipe that 
 leads the blood away from the heart is a big artery. 
 It soon branches into a number of smaller arteries 
 and these into smaller and smaller ones, which 
 reach here and there into every corner of the body, 
 even into the bones and the teeth. Finally, the 
 tiniest branches are so small that you cannot see 
 them except with a big microscope. There are mil- 
 lions of these and they are very short and fine, so 
 that their name "capillaries," which means "like 
 hairs," fits them nicely. 
 
 While the blood is passing through these tiny 
 capillaries it gives off to the body the oxygen that 
 it carries. They are like the radiators in your 
 house. The furnace, which is the heart, starts the 
 hot water circulating; it runs through pipes which 
 branch several times to reach different parts of the 
 house, growing smaller each time they branch. By 
 and by the hot water comes, to a radiator made of 
 small short pipes. Here it gives ofif its heat to 
 the house, just as the blood gives off its oxygen to 
 the body in the capillaries. From there the cooled 
 water runs back to the furnace to get a new supply 
 of heat just as the blood runs back to the heart 
 and lungs for more oxygen. 
 
38 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 So, after it has passed through the short capil- 
 laries, its main business is to get back to the heart 
 as fast as it can. The capillaries begin to join now 
 instead of branching, and so form the smallest 
 veins. These tiny veins join each other, always 
 getting larger; more and more of them run to- 
 gether, like brooks running into a river, until by 
 and by there is only one big vein, which empties 
 into the right side of the heart. 
 
 When the heart is filled with blood from the 
 veins, it suddenly contracts and squeezes the blood 
 out. Small, strong valves keep the blood from go- 
 ing back into the veins so that it always leaves the 
 heart through the arteries. As you know from 
 Chapter I, the heart contracts or "beats" about 
 seventy-two times every minute. The result of 
 the squeezing action is that the blood in the ar- 
 teries moves ahead in spurts or waves which you 
 call pulse beats when you feel for them in your 
 friend's wrist — much as water spurts from a hol- 
 low rubber ball when you squeeze it. 
 
 Therefore, when an artery is cut the blood es- 
 capes in jumps or spurts. Remember that. 
 
 But by and by, when the blood reaches the capil- 
 laries, the pulse beat gets lost. Perhaps the capil- 
 laries are so small that, though the blood gets 
 through, the pulse beat is strained out. 
 
 Suppose you imagine a thousand scouts going 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 39 
 
 to a World's Series baseball game. They march 
 down the street in fine, swinging step; that repre- 
 sents the pulse beat. Coming to the field they have 
 to go through a number of narrow gates that will 
 allow only one scout to pass at a time. Here they 
 lose their step, just as in the capillaries the blood 
 flow loses its beat. On the other side of the gates, 
 
 fl 
 
 they hurry along toward the bleachers all mixed 
 up and out of step. Just so the blood on the farther 
 side of the capillaries flows steadily back toward 
 the heart without a pulse beat. 
 
 Therefore when a vein is cut the blood escapes 
 in a steady stream without spurting. Remember 
 that too. 
 
 The Blood 
 
 This blood which we have been talking about is 
 a very busy sort of a substance. Because it can 
 
40 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 move about it is forced to do all the body's errands. 
 It picks up the food that we digest, carries it to 
 the organs that store it up and to the muscles that 
 use it; takes up oxygen in the lungs and carries it 
 to the organs that need it; brings back from them 
 the waste products, some of which it takes to the 
 
 lungs to throw off, some to the sweat glands, some 
 to the kidneys. Those are only a few of the many 
 things the blood does for us. You see, it is a sort 
 of messenger boy for the whole body. 
 
 The blood contains an enormous number of tiny 
 little round things called corpuscles. Most of them 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 41 
 
 are red and give the red color to the blood. These 
 red corpuscles carry the oxygen, and here is a curi- 
 ous thing : the more oxygen they carry the brighter 
 red they are; so that when they have been loaded 
 with it in the lungs and pass through the arteries 
 the color they give the blood is bright red. When 
 they have reached the capillaries and have given 
 up most of their oxygen and taken up carbonic acid 
 gas (which darkens the color) they give a dark 
 red or purple color to the blood. 
 
 Therefore blood from an artery is always bright 
 red and, as we know, escapes in spurts; while blood 
 from a vein is dark red or purple and Hows out in 
 a steady stream. 
 
 There are so many of these little red corpuscles 
 that a cubic inch of blood — a good tablespoonful — 
 holds more than fifty times as many of them as 
 there are people on the earth. Since our very life de- 
 pends on these tiny red corpuscles and the oxygen 
 they carry, perhaps you can begin to understand 
 what a wonderful substance blood is and how im- 
 portant it is not to lose much of it. 
 
 Hemorrhage 
 
 When a blood vessel is cut, hemorrhage occurs; 
 that is, the blood escapes. Hemorrhage and bleed- 
 ing mean the same thing. The word hemorrhage 
 comes from two Greek words meaning "blood" and 
 
42 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 "to burst or break out," so that we may define it 
 as loss of blood from any blood vessel. 
 
 When you draw a drop of blood with a pinprick 
 you have caused a hemorrhage; but one so tiny 
 that you don't worry about it, because you know 
 that Nature will soon stop the bleeding. She does 
 it in a wonderful way, like the magician she is. 
 As soon as blood is exposed to air it begins to 
 change into a jelly-like mass that grows harder 
 
 Jusdzs ifie 
 stopper awavj 
 
 and harder with time. We call the process clot- 
 ting. You know that after you cut yourself a 
 clot of blood forms in the cut and grows harder; 
 by and by it is what we call a scab; finally it falls 
 oflf and we see that the cut underneath is healed. 
 
 The clot that forms when a small artery is cut 
 acts like a stopper and keeps more blood from es- 
 caping ; but in a bigger artery the force of the pulse 
 beat is so much stronger that it pushes the stopper 
 away with each beat. 
 
 That does not happen in the veins because there 
 is no pulse beat and the blood flows more slowly ; so. 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 43 
 
 of course, when a vein is cut the clot has a better 
 chance to form and stop the hemorrhage. 
 
 Therefore bleeding from an artery is much more 
 dangerous than from, a vein. 
 
 Why Is Hemorrhage Dangerous? 
 
 Suppose in an engine room a steam pipe bursts 
 and steam escapes. A small leak is not serious, but 
 suppose a great deal escapes. What will happen 
 to the engine? Why, since it cannot go without 
 steam it will slow down, and if enough steam is 
 
 Lpposc cL orcoL (SeaC escabes " 
 
 lost it will stop. It cannot run without steam. 
 Neither can the body keep going without blood. 
 With the blood supply partly lost the body must 
 slow down like the engine. Once before (in Chap- 
 ter III) we spoke of the body in this way and 
 called the condition shock. 
 A severe hemorrhage, then, will bring on shock. 
 
44 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 which we know from Chapter III is a dangerous 
 condition. If still more blood is lost the person 
 becomes totally unconscious, because there is not 
 enough blood in the body to keep the brain awake ; 
 and finally, if the leakage is not stopped, the person 
 dies. 
 
 But the hemorrhage doesn't need to be severe 
 to cause shock. You remember that shock may 
 be caused by great emotion, especially fear. It is 
 dreadful enough to see others bleeding badly; but 
 it is far more dreadful to see your own blood spurt- 
 ing away. Some people are thrown into serious 
 shock by seeing their own wound even when the 
 hemorrhage is not severe. People have been known 
 to develop shock from a mere pin prick which draws 
 but three or four drops of blood. 
 
 Therefore always watch for shock after any 
 hemorrhage. 
 
 What to Do 
 
 A bad hemorrhage is like the ninth inning of a 
 baseball game when the score is one against you and 
 there are two out, two strikes on the batter and a 
 man is dancing up and down on third. The right 
 thing must be done and done in a hurry, or the 
 game is up! 
 
 You must stop the bleeding. How you shall do 
 it depends on whether it is from an artery or from 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 45 
 
 a vein; you already know how to tell which it is, 
 and you know that hemorrhage from a vein is 
 easier to stop and less dangerous. 
 
 In the case of a vein a piece of sterile compress 
 (see Chapter VII) put over the bleeding point and 
 bound on tightly with a bandage will often stop 
 the hemorrhage. If not, a tourniquet surely will. 
 Since in the veins the blood is flowing toward the 
 heart, put the tourniquet on the side of the cut away 
 from the heart. Fortunately, most bleeding that 
 you will see will be from the veins because they 
 lie near the surface of the body ; and you will seldom 
 need the tourniquet. 
 
 On the other hand, when you have a fair-sized 
 spurting artery to treat no amount of pressure over 
 the wound will stop the hemorrhage. You must 
 shut the blood off by pinching the artery before it 
 gets to the wound — that is, between the wound and 
 the heart. 
 
 The principal arteries, unlike the veins, are usu- 
 ally deep in the flesh, near the bones, and covered 
 thickly with muscles. Here and there they come 
 nearer the surface ; these are the places where you 
 must pinch them. 
 
 The easiest and quickest way of pinching an 
 artery is to press hard on it with the fingers or 
 thumb; but these soon get tired and have to be re- 
 lieved by a tourniquet. The need for a tourniquet 
 
46 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 rcssure points • 
 ^ountiauet Points ^^ 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 47 
 
 will probably come without warning as it did to two 
 scouts in the Ossipee Mountains. You must be 
 prepared to use your wits, and to use them without 
 loss of time. 
 
 Morton Drysdale and Tom Edmands were build- 
 ing a log cabin on the side of Black Snout Moun- 
 tain. Morton was cutting out the grooves in the 
 ends of the logs when his ax slipped and caught 
 him on the inside of his leg a little above the 
 ankle. The sharp blade went deep and the red 
 blood began to spurt. Morton immediately dropped 
 the ax and, grasping his leg in both hands, 
 squeezed it tightly above the cut. The bleeding al- 
 most instantly decreased, though it did not stop en- 
 tirely. 
 
 "Get a piece of rope!" Morton cried to Tom. 
 "I've cut myself!" 
 
 There was some rope two hundred yards down 
 in the woods where the boys had been dragging 
 out spruce logs, but instead of running to get it, 
 Tom, who realized from the note of emergency 
 in his friend's voice that the cut was serious, pulled 
 off his khaki belt and hurriedly began to make a 
 tourniquet. A few minutes later the two boys were 
 on their way out of the woods. At a point where 
 the trail joined a highway they encountered an auto- 
 mobile, and within an hour a doctor was taking 
 stitches in the leg. 
 
48 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 The Tourniquet 
 
 A tourniquet is any band put so tightly round a 
 limb that it stops the flow of blood in the arteries 
 or veins. The commonest tourniquet is a piece of 
 strong thick cloth wound round a limb loosely 
 and tightened by twisting a small stout stick put 
 part way through it. Tighten the tourniquet until 
 
 e^ sJourmjc^xiet 
 
 the blood stops flowing, then keep the stick in posi- 
 tion by holding one end against the limb with a piece 
 of string or cloth. Be careful not to pinch the 
 skin as you twist. A piece of rubber tubing from 
 an automobile gas tank makes an excellent tourni- 
 quet which needs no stick to tighten it. Wind it 
 around several times, then push the end under the 
 last turn to hold it. A long stocking is another good 
 substitute because it is both soft and elastic. 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 49 
 
 After you have put on the tourniquet you will 
 see that the part of the limb below turns a dark 
 bluish color because you have shut off the circula- 
 tion. You know that the body will die if the circu- 
 lation is stopped. Just -so that part of that limb 
 will die (the doctors say "gangrene will set in") 
 if it does not have a fresh supply of good blood once 
 in a while. So, if your tourniquet must be left on 
 
 Secotuf turn. A ^S yJ-U- 
 
 (oiuAorK^WtJ ^^ 
 
 (diuftpred under Mcr two) 
 
 ■Sadiurn, 
 
 Oi^od used in, appfvjin^ a tournujuct 
 df ru66er tuBlnfl 
 
 a long time before you can get to a doctor, loosen it 
 once an hour till the color in the limb returns, even 
 if the wound bleeds freely while you are doing it. 
 Then readjust the tourniquet and let it remain tight 
 for another hour. While it is loose press your 
 thumb just above the wound; that wijl stop most 
 of the bleeding. There are many little bypaths 
 through which the blood can reach the rest of the 
 
 limb. 
 
 Sometimes you can get more pressure on an 
 artery by slipping a round stone or a roll of band- 
 
so FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 age under the tourniquet in such position as to press 
 directly on the blood-vessel. For instance: when 
 the bleeding is below the knee, force the round ob- 
 ject deep in behind the knee, then bend the leg 
 on it till the heel comes up against the buttock; 
 hold the leg bent in that position by bandages. 
 
 Scalp wounds bleed very freely, for the scalp 
 is well supplied with blood. But take a few turns 
 of bandage tightly round the head where the rim 
 of your hat comes and see how quickly the bleeding 
 stops. 
 
 Where there is hemorrhage from a wound in 
 the neck, whether from an artery or from a vein, 
 you are in a fix. You cannot put a tourniquet round 
 a man's neck and twist it tight, because you will 
 choke him. You don't want to kill him in order 
 to save his life. If the bleeding is from a vein the 
 best treatment is to force a sterile compress tightly 
 into the wound and hold it there for some time 
 with your hand. If it is from an artery you are 
 almost helpless; the only thing to do is to see just 
 where the spurt is coming from, then reach into 
 the wound with your fingers and try to pinch the 
 cut end of ,the artery — the end toward the heart. 
 In this one case never mind whether or not your 
 fingers are clean; you have no time to wash them 
 and you must save the man's life even at the risk 
 of causing "blood poisoning" in the wound. 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 51 
 
 The First Thing in All Emergencies 
 
 Whenever you find a man bleeding, stop that first, 
 no matter what else may be wrong. Then look 
 for shock and treat it. And remember again that 
 some people will be thrown into a state of shock 
 by only a little hemorrhage, especially if they see 
 the bleeding. 
 
 In Short 
 
 In short, the treatment of a person who is bleed- 
 ing is : first, stop the hemorrhage ; second, don't let 
 your patient see the blood or the injury (this is 
 true of all bad injuries) ; be cheerful and comfort 
 your patient; actually smile; third, treat shock, if 
 present (see Chapters I and III) ; especially keep 
 the patient's head low, to let whatever blood he has 
 left run to his head. 
 
 And don't forget to have someone punch, kick, 
 or blow up the fellow with the long face who always 
 hangs round an accident and talks about how ter- 
 rible it is. 
 
 Unseen hut Dangerous 
 
 There is another kind of hemorrhage that may 
 occur when a person has been injured internally, 
 as when he has fallen a long distance or when his 
 body has been crushed. This is internal concealed 
 
52 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 hemorrhage. That big name means that a blood 
 vessel inside the body has been broken open and is 
 bleeding there. 
 
 It usually happens in the abdomen, which is the 
 big cavity in the lower half of the body, filled with 
 important organs. These organs, such as the 
 stomach, intestines, liver, spleen and kidneys, are 
 supplied with blood by fair-sized arteries. Usually 
 the bleeding is from these arteries; but sometimes 
 the liver or spleen or kidneys themselves are split 
 open by a fall or a crush and bleed badly. The 
 blood runs into the abdomen and does not, of 
 course, appear on the outside ; in fact, a person may 
 bleed to death in that way without a drop of blood 
 being visible. 
 
 "But if we can't see the bleeding," you may say, 
 "how on earth can we tell when it happens?" 
 
 By watching the signs. Any person who has 
 been badly crushed or has fallen far will be in 
 shock anyhow. If he then grows still more pale, 
 if his pulse rate goes steadily higher (find this out 
 by taking his pulse every fifteen minutes and keep- 
 ing a record of it), if he grows very thirsty, and 
 if he begins to feel as if he could not breathe and 
 gasps for air — then you can be pretty sure that he 
 is bleeding internally. 
 
 There is no first aid treatment for this ; you can- 
 not put a tourniquet on an artery inside your 
 
A LITTLE ABOUT THE BLOOD 53 
 
 patient; you must at once get him to a doctor who 
 may have to operate. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Blood from an artery sputts and is bright red. 
 
 Blood from a vein flows steadily and is dark 
 red or purple. 
 
 Bleeding from an artery is more dangerous than 
 from a vein. 
 
 Severe hemorrhage always causes shock; slight 
 hemorrhage often does. 
 
 Treat hemorrhage first; then look for shock. 
 
 After falls or crushing accidents look for signs 
 of internal hemorrhage — rising pulse rate, increas- 
 ing paleness, thirst and "air hunger" or gasping 
 for air. 
 
 Remember that your patient looks to you for 
 comfort as well as for treatment. Therefore keep 
 your head, know what to do and do it with a smile. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 SUNSTROKE AND HEAT EXHAUSTION 
 
 Sunstroke and heat exhaustion are caused by 
 the same thing, too much heat, but they are quite 
 different; as different, in fact, as ice and steam, 
 which have only this Hkeness, that they come from 
 the same thing — water. If you treated a man with 
 sunstroke as if he had heat exhaustion you might 
 easily make him worse — very likely would take 
 away his chances of getting better. 
 
 Let's see how it happens that these two different 
 conditions are caused by the same thing. You 
 know that the temperature of a healthy man is close 
 to 98.6°, even in freezing weather. Where does all 
 that heat come from? In the case of a fire the 
 heat is the result of the burning of the fuel. In 
 the body it is true that fuel is burned too ; the food 
 that we eat is burned — very slowly, of course, and 
 not fast enough to give as much heat at one time 
 as the wood in the fire does, but fast enough to 
 keep the body warm. And it is a curious fact that 
 food gives off exactly as much heat when it is 
 burned in the body as it would if you threw it in 
 
 54 
 
SUNSTROKE— HEAT EXHAUSTION 55 
 
 the fire. So that if you could digest a stick of wood, 
 you would get as much heat out of it as if you 
 burned it in your grate. 
 
 In fact, so much heat is manufactured in the 
 body that we must always be losing some of it or 
 we would soon become too hot. In winter, when 
 the air about us is cold, we lose more heat than in 
 the summer; therefore we eat heartier food that 
 will give us more heat when it is burned, and put 
 on heavier clothes to keep the heat from passing 
 off into the cold air. In summer, when the air is 
 as warm or warmer than our bodies are, less heat 
 escapes from us ; therefore we need to produce less 
 heat and so we eat less hearty food and wear loose, 
 light clothes in order that extra heat may be easily 
 lost. 
 
 You see, the balance between the heat that we 
 produce and the heat that we lose must always 
 be kept at 98.6°. 
 
 Heat is produced in the body in this way: the 
 food that we eat is digested and absorbed into the 
 body and stored in the liver and other organs. 
 From there it is carried to the muscles and burned 
 when the muscles are in action, setting free the 
 heat. The blood picks up the heat and distributes 
 it about the body. 
 
 It is lost in several ways. Much of it escapes 
 directly into the air, some is lost in the warm breath 
 
S6 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 and a good deal disappears when the sweat evap- 
 orates. 
 
 If we manufacture a great deal of heat by run- 
 ning or working hard, the temperature of the body 
 tends to go up too fast; then the sweat pours out 
 on the skin in great quantities and helps to get rid 
 of the extra heat. 
 
 Suppose that on a hot day a man is working very 
 hard. He is developing heat faster than he can 
 lose it. The result will be that his temperature will 
 soon rise above 98.6°. That will never do; he 
 must either lose more heat or produce less, or 
 take the consequences. If he keeps on working, 
 two things may happen : either his temperature will 
 actually rise far above the normal — that is what 
 we call sunstroke — or Nature will step in and force 
 him to stop producing heat. The only way that 
 she can do that is to slow down all his machinery 
 — not only the muscles of his arms and legs but 
 those of his heart and breathing apparatus too; so 
 that we may say that the man is in a depressed 
 condition. 
 
 Perhaps you will remember that we spoke once 
 before of a condition in which the patient was like 
 an engine slowing down, and that we called that 
 condition shock. This second effect of great heat 
 in the air is nothing but shock from heat — and that 
 is what we call heat exhaustion. 
 
SUNSTROKE— HEAT EXHAUSTION 57 
 
 HEAT EXHAUSTION 
 
 If heat exhaustion is shock from heat we know 
 at once that it belongs in group A and just what 
 the signs of it are. The patient will be somewhat, 
 dull or very drowsy, pale, with shallow respiration 
 and weak, rapid pulse and a cool skin covered with 
 a cold sweat. If you should take his temperature 
 with a thermometer you would find it below 98.6°. 
 That seems strange when you think that the cause 
 of heat exhaustion is too much heat on the outside 
 of the body ; but remember Nature has tried to save 
 the patient by cutting down the heat production 
 and has done it in the only way she can — by throw- 
 ing the patient into shock. Of course, shock al- 
 ways has the same signs, no matter what the 
 cause is. 
 
 SUNSTROKE 
 
 If you have ever seen anyone who is suffering 
 from sunstroke you will remember that his face was 
 more or less red. That sign belongs in group B. 
 Sunstroke is the first condition we have found in 
 group B. In that group, you remember, the patient 
 is entirely unconscious, his face red, his breathing 
 slow and noisy, his pulse slow and full and his 
 temperature above normal. In sunstroke, too, the 
 skin will be dry — without sweat. In fact, the ab- 
 sence of sweat is one of the reasons for the patient's 
 
58 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 condition. He has lost one of the best means of 
 getting rid of his surplus heat, so that nearly all 
 the heat he is making is stored up in him. If you 
 should take his temperature with a thermometer 
 you would find that it is up to 105° or more — often 
 as high as 107° or 108°, sometimes as high as 
 112" or 113". 
 
 Treatment 
 
 If you will remember that in sunstroke the tem- 
 perature is above normal and that in heat exhaus- 
 tion (which is shock from heat) it is below normal, 
 you will not forget what to do. In sunstroke you 
 must get the heat down to normal again and in 
 heat exhaustion you must raise it to normal. The 
 treatment for heat exhaustion is the treatment for 
 shock — warm and stimulate. Get the patient into 
 a cooler place than he has been in, cover him with 
 warm clothes, rub his limbs toward his heart under 
 the clothes and give him a cup of black coffee or 
 half a teaspoon ful of aromatic spirits of ammonia 
 in half a cup of water. 
 
 For sunstroke, get the patient into a cold place 
 and bathe him with cold water. The best way to 
 do this is to undress him and bathe him all over 
 with cloths wet in ice water. If he does not become 
 conscious soon with this treatment, get him into 
 a tub of cold water with ice floating in it, taking 
 
SUNSTROKE— HEAT EXHAUSTION 59 
 
 care of course not to let his head slip under the 
 water. All the time you are doing this rub his 
 limbs vigorously. When he is conscious, give him 
 all the ice water he wants to drink. 
 
 Remember that a person with a mild case of 
 sunstroke may be simply dizzy and red and may 
 vomit. 
 
 Of course, in either case, you will get a doctor 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 Persons who have had one sunstroke are likely 
 to have another unless they take precaution. 
 
6o FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 How They Happen 
 
 Usually sunstroke happens to persons who are 
 working in the hot sun, such as farmers, teamsters 
 and ditch diggers. If you ever have to work in 
 the sun in summer, get a big straw hat with plenty 
 of ventilation or else put some green leaves or a 
 wet cloth in the crown. 
 
 Heat exhaustion usually happens to persons who 
 are working in a hot place, out of the direct rays 
 of the sun. A foundry or a boiler room on a steam- 
 ship or in a mill is a likely place for heat exhaus- 
 tion. It frequently overcomes old people who are 
 out on the streets on a hot day, but oftenest of 
 all it happens to men who are in the habit of taking 
 beer or whiskey. 
 
 But— 
 
 Sometimes people in the hot sun have heat ex- 
 haustion and sometimes those in a hot place out of 
 the sun have sunstroke. You cannot tell which con- 
 dition a man has until you have studied his signs 
 and decided into which group they fall. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 Sunstroke. 
 
 I Cause — Great heat. Usually hot sun shining 
 on head. Alcoholic drinks help to cause it. 
 
SUNSTROKE— HEAT EXHAUSTION 6i 
 
 2 Signs — Group B: Dizziness, vomiting, feeling 
 
 of great heat, headache, perhaps convulsions, 
 usually unconsciousness, flushed face, slow 
 respiration and pulse, temperature up to 
 I07°-Ii3°, skin hot and dry. 
 
 3 Treatment — Group B : Reduce temperature by 
 
 external cold, and by cold drinks when 
 patient is conscious. 
 
 4 Prevention — Keep out of hot sun on hot day. 
 
 Put green leaves (plantain) or wet cloth 
 under your hat. Avoid alcoholic drinks. 
 
 Heat Exhaustion. 
 
 1 Cause — Great heat, usually out of sunshine. 
 
 Alcoholic drinks help to cause it. 
 
 2 Signs — Group A: Consciousness dulled, color 
 
 pale, respiration shallow, pulse rapid, tem- 
 perature low (97"-96°). 
 
 3 Treatment — Group A : Warm and stimulate. 
 
 4 Prevention — Keep in good health in warm 
 
 weather. Eat lightly, drink much water, 
 keep bowels open. Avoid going out in heat, 
 of day. Never take alcoholic drinks. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE, APOPLEXY, 
 ALCOHOLIC INTOXICATION AND EPILEPSY 
 
 One day last spring a college baseball team was 
 practicing for its championship series. Every player 
 was on his toes. The pitcher wound up and put 
 the ball cleanly over the plate. The batter struck 
 it squarely and sent it out low, straight and hard 
 down the center of the diamond. The pitcher, off 
 his balance, threw up his hand, but he missed the 
 ball and it struck him a hard, glancing blow on the 
 side of -the head. He stumbled, put his hand to the 
 spot and dropped. The other members of the team 
 ran to him and took him to the college hospital. 
 It was late that night before he began to grow con- 
 scious ; but he improved steadily and two days later 
 was back in the game. 
 
 That was a bad case of concussion-^-of being 
 "knocked out." Slight cases are happening every 
 day. Perhaps you fall on the ice, hit the back of 
 your head and don't know anything for a few 
 minutes, or, in such a game as Flag Raiding, you 
 and another scout run together hard and strike your 
 
 62 
 
CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE 63 
 
 heads ; or, if you live in Africa, a ripe cocoanut hits 
 you on your topknot. Or perhaps a big beam, lifted 
 by a derrick, swings round and strikes a workman 
 on the head. It is always some sort of blow on 
 the head. The brain is violently jarred and stunned 
 into unconsciousness for a minute or longer. 
 
 Those are all simple cases for which the treat- 
 ment is simple. Proceed as in fainting. Lay the 
 patient down in a cool place, loosen tight clothing 
 at his neck and belt, sprinkle cold water on his 
 face and chest and let him smell of a cloth wet with 
 our old friend aromatic spirits of ammonia. 
 
 SOMETHING WORSE— SKULL FRACTURE 
 
 The thug with his blackjack intends only to stun 
 you so that he may rob you at his leisure, but in- 
 stead of merely stunning you his small heavy sand- 
 bag may crack your head. In that case a blood ves- 
 sel inside the skull is very likely to be injured and 
 a hemorrhage may occur between the bone and the 
 brain, pressing on the brain and causing serious 
 injury. This bleeding may be small and slow but 
 steady, so that it may be hours before its effects 
 will appear. 
 
 Whenever a person is struck or falls on his head 
 be on the lookout for a skull fracture. In deciding 
 about it do not trust to your own judgment; but 
 if the person does not regain his consciousness 
 
64 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 within five or ten minutes, especially if he is bleed- 
 ing from nose or ears, or if the pupils of his eyes 
 are unequal in size, have a doctor see him at once. 
 Two doctors worried over the baseball pitcher sev- 
 eral hours before they were sure that his skull 
 was whole. 
 
 APOPLEXY 
 
 You may have heard your mother say that some- 
 one she knows has had "a stroke" or "a stroke of 
 apoplexy." She means that the person either has 
 suddenly become unconscious or is paralyzed in 
 arms or legs or both; perhaps he cannot talk, even 
 after he has become conscious. This condition usu- 
 ally comes on without any warning at all; some- 
 times it happens after the person has been strain- 
 ing at his work or running for a train ; but some- 
 times it happens when he is sitting quietly or is in 
 bed. 
 
 The cause of apoplexy is the bursting of a blood 
 vessel in the brain. It usually happens in old people 
 because their arteries grow brittle and break easily. 
 The clot that forms injures the parts of the brain 
 that regulate the speech and the motions of the arms 
 and legs, so that what you see happen is this: an 
 old man, perhaps, is hurrying for the car. He may 
 appear to be perfectly healthy. Suddenly he falls. 
 You find that he is unconscious; you run over in 
 
CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE 65 
 
 your mind the four other signs that usually go with 
 unconsciousness and find that his face is flushed 
 and red, his respiration slow, deep and noisy, his 
 pulse slow and full and his skin warm. Perhaps 
 he is restless and mumbles something. Since all 
 this falls in group B, since nothing has struck his 
 head and since there is no smell of alcohol on his 
 breath, you decide that he has apoplexy. 
 
 Everybody is very much excited and each one 
 wants to do something different. But because you 
 are a scout and are prepared, you will keep your 
 head and will remember that the treatment for 
 group B is to get the patient to a cool place, keep 
 him quiet, loosen his clothes and keep people away. 
 If he is restless you will see to it that he does not 
 harm himself. You will raise his head because 
 you do not want any more blood to get to that 
 broken vessel in his brain than you can help. You 
 will send for a doctor, of course. Above all, you 
 will not use any stimulant, for that will only make 
 his heart work harder and may increase the bleed- 
 ing into his brain. 
 
 When you have done those few things you have 
 done all that you can. Leave the rest to the doctor. 
 
 Apoplexy is sometimes wrongly called "a shock." 
 It has nothing to do with surgical shock. One is in 
 group B, the other in group A. Stick to the name 
 apoplexy and you won't become confused. 
 
66 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 ALCOHOLIC INTOXICATION 
 
 It is not always easy to decide whether a man 
 is only very drunk or whether something more seri- 
 ous is the matter. If he is so intoxicated that we 
 say he is "dead drunk" he will be unconscious and 
 paralyzed for the time being and his condition may 
 be easily confused with apoplexy. Or perhaps he 
 
 has fallen and struck his head while moderately 
 drunk and is unconscious from concussion; at the 
 same time he may have a small skull fracture which 
 you may not discover. In that case, the bleeding 
 inside the head may not show any signs for several 
 hours. It is not safe, you see, to decide that a 
 man is nothing more than drunk merely because 
 you can smell the odor of alcohol on his breath. 
 
CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE 67 
 
 If there is any doubt in your mind at all, get a 
 doctor at once. While you wait for him, pour 
 some aromatic spirits of ammonia on a handkerchief 
 and hold it very close over his nose and mouth. 
 Be careful not to get any in his eyes. If he is 
 drunk he will probably turn his head to get away 
 from the stifling smell or try to push your hand 
 away; perhaps you can even bring him out of his 
 deep unconsciousness in this way. Another way to 
 rouse him is to press hard with your thumb in the 
 middle of his eyebrow. You will find there, in 
 most people, a tiny groove in which runs a nerve, 
 called the supra-orbital. Press hard on this little 
 nerve in your own eyebrow ; you will soon find the 
 pressure too painful to bear. 
 
 If the patient rouses considerably with pressure 
 on this nerve or with the ammonia, if the pupils 
 of his eyes are equal in size, if he moves both arms 
 and legs himself (so that you are sure he is not 
 paralyzed) and if you find no bump on his head, 
 you may be fairly sure that his condition is due 
 to liquor alone. In this case make him vomit if 
 you can by tickling his throat with a straw or a 
 feather, and when he is conscious give him a big 
 dose (i to 2 teaspoonfuls) of aromatic spirits of 
 ammonia and an ounce of Epsom salts in a full 
 glass of water. 
 
 On the other hand, if you think there is any 
 
68 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 possibility of apoplexy or a skull fracture, do not 
 by any means trust your own judgment. A few 
 years ago you could read in the papers every little 
 while that the police had locked a man in the sta- 
 tion, supposing that he was intoxicated. In the 
 morning he would still be unconscious and perhaps 
 paralyzed. A doctor would be sent for and would 
 find that the patient had a fractured skull or an 
 attack of apoplexy. A mistake like that is serious 
 business, for the man might die during the night 
 for the lack of a doctor's care; but fortunately 
 it happens less and less often now, for officers are 
 well drilled nowadays in first aid and will take such 
 a man to a doctor before they lock him up. 
 
 Do not be fooled by the patient's breath. Some 
 misguided person may have found your unconscious 
 man before you and may have poured liquor 
 into his mouth in an ignorant attempt to revive 
 him. 
 
 EPILEPSY OR "FITS" 
 
 A fit of epilepsy comes on suddenly ; in fact, the 
 word means something that "leaps on" the person. 
 Sometimes epilepsy is called the falling sickness, 
 and the Bible speaks of it as "having a devil." 
 
 It belongs in this chapter because it is caused 
 by something wrong in the brain — no one knows 
 what ; but you need not bother about the five signs 
 
CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE 69 
 
 because there isn't time and because you never will 
 mistake epilepsy for anything else. 
 
 The fit comes on anywhere at any time. The 
 person suddenly cries out in a queer, hoarse way, 
 straightens out, falls and becomes perfectly rigid. 
 He does not breathe and quickly gets purple in the 
 face. After half a minute or so he relaxes a little 
 and begins to shake violently, throwing his head and 
 limbs about and catching his breath in great gasps, 
 so that the saliva is churned into foam. These 
 jerky movemeijts gradually grow less violent and 
 stop, leaving the patient limp, exhausted and still 
 unconscious. He may become conscious soon, 
 though he probably will be dazed for a while; or 
 he may drop into a heavy sleep that lasts for sev- 
 eral hours. The whole fit occupies only two to 
 five minutes. 
 
 You see that a fit of this kind is not a pleasant 
 thing to watch. People who are not prepared are 
 likely to leave the poor fellow to himself. But a 
 scout must know what to do; and this is very 
 simple : keep the man from hurting himself. He 
 is likely to bang his head about and especially likely 
 to bite his tongue. So get something soft and not 
 too large under his head, such as a loosely rolled 
 coat, and slip something between his teeth to keep 
 his mouth partly open. For this, take something 
 wooden about as large as the base of your thumb. 
 
70 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 such as the small handle of an umbrella, or half a 
 newspaper rolled tightly, or the end of your coat 
 sleeve gathered together; slip it between the per- 
 son's back teeth, and look out that he doesn't bite 
 your finger. 
 
 Don't try to hold him still. He is very strong 
 in these attacks and might hurt you. Call a doctor 
 or an ambulance. Loosen tight clothing. When 
 the fit is ended get the person into a warm, quiet 
 place. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Concussion, skull facture, apoplexy, alcoholic in- 
 toxication and epilepsy may all cause unconscious- 
 ness. Often the diagnosis between them is very 
 puzzling. The following summary is not meant 
 to tell the whole story; but it is, however, sug- 
 gestive. 
 
 Concussion 
 
 Caused by a blow on the head or on the spine; 
 unconsciousness at once, lasting from a few 
 seconds to several hours. Keep the patient 
 quiet and warm ; cold to head. Get a doctor. 
 
 Skull Fracture 
 
 Caused by injury to head; usually a bruise or 
 cut somewhere on the scalp; pupils of eyes 
 unequal in size; often bleeding from mouth 
 or nose, or from the ears. Unconsciousness 
 
CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE 71 
 
 and inequality of pupils may come on slowly 
 some time after the injury. Keep quiet 
 and warm. Get a doctor at once. Cold 
 to head. Do not stimulate. 
 
 Apoplexy 
 
 Sudden paralysis or unconsciousness or both. 
 Usually in people over forty. Face red, 
 respiration deep and noisy, pulse slow and 
 full, temperature little changed, pupils un- 
 equal. Keep quiet and warm. Raise head. 
 Get a doctor. 
 
 Alcoholic Intoxication 
 
 Unconscious or very dull, face red, respiration 
 and pulse little changed, temperature prob- 
 ably lowered. Alcohol on breath. Can be 
 roused by supra-orbital pressure or by smell- 
 ing of ammonia. Always remember the pos- 
 sibility of some other condition besides the 
 intoxication. If patient can be roused, pupils 
 equal, no paralysis, no head wound, make 
 him vomit and give him, when conscious, one 
 to two teaspoonfuls aromatic spirits of am- 
 monia and one ounce Epsom salts in a glass 
 of water. Get a doctor. 
 
 Epilepsy, "Convulsion," "Fit" 
 
 The convulsion is so typical that it will never be 
 mistaken for anything else. Keep patient 
 
72 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 from hurting himself, especially from biting 
 his tongue. After the fit, keep quiet and 
 warm. Stimulation does no good. Get a 
 doctor. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 INFECTION AND "STAPHY" 
 
 This is the story of a germ named Staphy. That, 
 at least, is what his chums called him, for his real 
 name, which was Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, 
 was much too long to say often. One of his cousins 
 had a still prettier name — Diplococcus intracellularis 
 meningitidis. In spite of their long names Staphy 
 and all his relatives were very tiny fellows; they 
 frequently held dances on a pinhead and a watch 
 crystal, made a splendid camping ground for whole 
 armies of them. Staphy himself and all his sisters 
 and brothers and first cousins were round ; but some 
 of his distant relatives were like short little rods 
 or tiny corkscrews. Before microscopes were in- 
 vented no one ever saw any of them; but though 
 they were so tiny, they caused a lot of trouble in 
 the world because there were so many thousands 
 of millions of billions of them everywhere, and, 
 as doctors eventually found out, some one or other 
 of them was responsible for nearly every disease. 
 
 They lived in almost any place — in dirt, on l^ouse 
 walls, in milk and water, on people's clothes and 
 
 73 
 
74 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 skins and in their mouths, and some of them even 
 lived inside of people. 
 
 It didn't take much to make Staphy happy, he 
 got along well almost anywhere. He wasn't afraid 
 of cold, for that couldn't hurt him ; but he kept out 
 of the way of fresh air and sunshine and those 
 things that are called antiseptics, such as high tem- 
 peratures or boiling water, or tincture of iodine or 
 alcohol; for all those things kill germs. Germs 
 are only little plants, anyway, and not animals; 
 and it is easy to kill them when you go about it 
 right. 
 
 But when Staphy found a warm, moist place that 
 suited him he set out to grow and raise brother and 
 sister germs. He did it in a queer way — simply got 
 a little bigger and then calmly split into two pieces. 
 He hadn't any bones, but was made of a jelly-like 
 substance, so that it was easy for him to split. 
 Each of the new germs soon split again, and each of 
 these again, and so on, until in a day or so there 
 were more brothers and sisters than you could 
 count in a week; and they all looked exactly alike. 
 
 When Staphy and his relations sat down and 
 talked about where they would like to live, they all 
 agreed that Mr. Man's house was the finest place 
 they could think of. In among his muscles and 
 bones and tendons and blood vessels it was always 
 warm and moist. But there were two objections: 
 
INFECTION AND "STAPHY" 75 
 
 first, Mr. Man wore all over his body a tough cover- 
 ing of skin through which no germ, unaided, could 
 ever hope to get; and second, if the germ should 
 find a cut in the skin and get through, there were 
 the terrible white corpuscles of the blood that would 
 work their way out of the blood vessels and over 
 to where the germ was and eat him up. The 
 germs' only hope was to get a crowd together and 
 all go in at once ; then there would be a great fight 
 between them and the white corpuscles, and many 
 would die on both sides and for a little way round 
 the battlefield the muscle or bone would be killed, 
 too. People would say that an abscess had formed ; 
 and by and by it would break out or the doctor 
 would open it with a knife and all the dead muscle 
 or bone and the dead germs and the dead white 
 corpuscles would run out. People called it pus. 
 
 And finally, if Mr. Man were strong enough, his 
 white corpuscles killed ofif all the germ family 
 and the abscess got well; but if Mr. Man didn't 
 have a good constitution or if he hadn't lived a 
 clean, straight life, sometimes the germ family grew 
 too fast for their enemies and spread all through 
 Mr. Man. So by and by Mr. Man died. Or per- 
 haps, before it got as bad as that, the doctor said he 
 had "blood poisoning" in his arm or in his leg, and 
 in order to save Mr. Man's life he cut off the bad 
 limb. 
 
76 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 It happened one hot July day that Staphy and a 
 few million of his relatives were lying in the dust 
 of a country road down which was coming a troop 
 of scouts. A wagon passed and stirred up the 
 dust. Away it went in a thick cloud, drifting before 
 the summer breeze; and on one of its tiny particles 
 away went Staphy and several thousand of his 
 relatives, too. The dust blew in among the scouts, 
 who turned their backs and shut their eyes; and 
 Harry Phillips wiped his sweaty face with his hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 It happened that the particle of dust on which 
 Staphy rode found lodgment on Harry's sticky face 
 and was wiped off on his handkerchief. 
 
 The troop turned into the woods soon, found their 
 lean-to, and began to look for firewood. Harry, 
 who was only a tenderfoot, had not yet learned how 
 to use his hatchet and had cut only a few notches 
 in his sticks before he cut one on the back of his 
 wrist. 
 
 George Wright, one of the patrol leaders, heard 
 his exclamation and looked up. 
 
 "That's too bad," he said. "Come over here and 
 let me help you fix it up." 
 
 "Oh! it's nothing," Harry answered. "It isn't 
 bleeding much. I'll just wrap my handkerchief 
 round it and it will be all right." 
 
 If Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus (who is 
 
INFECTION AND "STAPHY" 77 
 
 Staphy for short) had been anything except a tiny 
 plant — if he could have heard what Harry said — 
 he would have jumped for joy; for there he was 
 with his relatives on that very handkerchief, aching 
 for that very chance to get under someone's skin 
 and begin to grow. 
 
 George Wright was a first-class scout. Although 
 he didn't know about Staphy in particular he had 
 learned that germs are everywhere and that nothing 
 must touch a broken place in the skin, whether from 
 a cut, burn, blister or what not, except something 
 that is free from germs. 
 
 "No! Don't do that!" he cried to Harry. "Don't 
 use your handkerchief. It isn't clean." 
 
 "Sure it is," Harry called back. "Came out of 
 my drawer just before we started." 
 
 "I don't rqean that," laughed George. "I mean 
 clean — without any germs. There are plenty of 
 them on your handkerchief, because I saw you wip- 
 ing the sweat off your face with it a little while ago. 
 Come over here and we'll fix you up right.*"* Oh, 
 Stan," he called to one of the other scouts, "bring 
 your first aid outfit over here." 
 
 "Forgot it," called back Stan. "Sorry." Stan 
 was always forgetting; that's why he was only a 
 second-class scout after fourteen months in the 
 troop. 
 
 "Thunder!" exclaimed George. "No sterile 
 
78 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 bandage !" (He meant one without germs.) "We'll 
 have to boil up a dressing. Let's see your handker- 
 chief, Harry." 
 
 The wound was bleeding a little now, but it was 
 dark blood and did not spurt, so George knew that 
 it was only a vein that was cut — a small one. At 
 his direction, Harry grasped his wrist below the 
 
 SolfiMgWaier , 
 
 cut with his other hand and was surprised to see 
 the bleeding stop. 
 
 "There doesn't seem to be any dust in the air 
 here," said George, "so it won't do any harm to 
 leave the cut uncovered a few minutes." 
 
 By this time the fires were started and water 
 was heating. George took Harry's handkerchief 
 (with Staphy and a great many of his relatives on 
 it) and folded it as if it had just come from the 
 
INFECTION AND "STAPHY" 79 
 
 laundry. Then he laid it in a pan of boiling water 
 and let it boil for ten minutes. He knew that no 
 germ could stand that, and that the handkerchief 
 would then be free from germs and safe to put 
 over the wound, providing that he was careful not 
 to let any fresh germs get on it. 
 
 So this is the end of Staphy and his companions. 
 When the ten minutes were up they were all dead, 
 and a dead germ can't hurt anyone. 
 
 George had been washing his hands in a brook 
 nearby for several minutes and drying them by 
 waving them in the air, being careful not to touch 
 anything with them. This was to wash off all the 
 germs he could before he touched the boiled hand- 
 kerchief. Then, dipping his fingers quickly into the 
 boiling water, he got hold of one extreme corner 
 of the folded handkerchief and, holding it up, waved 
 it back and forth in the air to cool it, changing his 
 fingers often, but being careful not to touch more 
 than the one corner. When the handkerchief was 
 cool enough to handle, he folded it tightly, still 
 touching only comers, and wrung it out with two 
 or three quick twists. Then he opened it till he came 
 to an inside surface which he was sure he had not 
 touched with his fingers; this he turned next to 
 the skin and laid it carefully over the wound, 
 taking pains not to move it while he put on a band- 
 age, for fear that germs from the neighboring skin 
 
8o FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 would be dragged into the wound and infect 
 it. 
 
 The word "infection" comes from two Latin 
 words meaning "putting something in." George 
 Wright took all these pains to avoid putting any 
 germs into Harry's wound. A doctor dressed it 
 that night, and the next week, when the troop came 
 again to the lean-to, Harry's wrist was healing 
 nicely. 
 
 If Stanley Hopkins had only remembered his 
 first aid outfit, all of George's trouble would have 
 been avoided. Every good first aid outfit includes 
 one or more small packages containing sterile 
 (germless) dressings wrapped in such a way that 
 they remain sterile for months. It had been the 
 plan of George's patrol — and a very good one, too — 
 always to have one or two of these packets with 
 them on every hike. 
 
 If Staphy had been on Harry Phillips' hatchet 
 blade, instead of on his handkerchief, he would 
 have been carried straight through the skin into 
 the wound. Once in, no amount of sterile dress- 
 ings could harm him or get him out; they would 
 only keep new germs out. In that case something 
 more would be needed, something that would go 
 into the wound after Staphy and kill him — that is, 
 an antiseptic. George knew that when a doctor 
 can be reached within two or three hours, as in 
 
INFECTION AND "STAPHY" 8i 
 
 Harry's case, it is better to leave the wound alone 
 except for the sterile dressing. If he had been off 
 on a two or three day hike he would probably have 
 carried with him several of the little glass ampules of 
 tincture of iodine, such as are sold by the American- 
 Red Cross, or else a two-ounce bottle of it. A little 
 of this, he knew, poured into a cut or spread on 
 a scraped surface with a brush or with a piece of 
 clean cloth, would be almost sure to kill any bac- 
 teria (for that is the proper way to speak of germs) 
 that might have gotten into the wound. His scout- 
 master had told him that the soldiers in the Great 
 War were provided with little boxes containing an 
 ampule of iodine and a sterile compress and band- 
 age, and that, by killing the bacteria already there 
 with the iodine and by keeping new ones out with 
 the sterile compress, many wounds had healed with- 
 out infection and many soldiers' lives had been 
 saved. 
 
 If tincture of iodine had not been handy George 
 might have used alcohol, 70 per cent pure, which- 
 must always be kept tightly corked to prevent it 
 from absorbing water from the air and so losing 
 strength. 
 
 If no antiseptics were handy, if the doctor could 
 not be reached for a number of hours, and especially 
 if dirt had been ground into the wound, George, 
 after thoroughly cleansing his hands, would have 
 
82 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 washed it out gently with a sterile cloth wet with 
 water boiled ten minutes and cooled. In the city, 
 tap water is virtually free from Staphy and his un- 
 pleasant family, but brook and lake water should 
 always be boiled. 
 
 Peroxide of hydrogen is excellent as a mouth 
 wash and for deep punctured wounds, such as that 
 made by a nail, but its value as a general antiseptic 
 is so small that it is not worth while to bother 
 with. 
 
 Staphy Germ — or Staphy Bacterium, as we must 
 call him now — ^has introduced us in this chapter 
 to those accidents that are not immediately danger- 
 ous to life, but that through infection may later 
 become so. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Bacteria, especially those varieties that produce 
 pus, exist everywhere. 
 
 The skin is a protection through which no bac- 
 terium can penetrate. Therefore any break in the 
 skin (as in scrapes, cuts, burns, compound frac- 
 tures) opens the way for infection. 
 
 Aseptic dressings are those in which the bacteria 
 have been killed by some antiseptic. For example, 
 a cloth boiled for ten minutes is aseptic. 
 
 Antiseptics include boiling water, tincture of 
 iodine and 70 per cent, alcohol. 
 
INFECTION AND "STAPHY" 83 
 
 The ideal way to treat a small break in the skin, 
 such as a scratch, a cut or a hole torn by a broken 
 bone, is to put tincture of iodine into it and cover it 
 with a sterile compress and bandage. Avoid court 
 plaster and collodion, also "surgeon's plaster" or 
 adhesive tape, except for holding a bandage from 
 slipping out of place. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 BURNS AND FROSTBITES 
 
 When you boil an egg two things happen to it; 
 it hardens and becomes a dead egg that will no 
 longer hatch. Since the substances in an egg are 
 somewhat like the substances that make up our 
 skin and muscles, it is easy to believe that great 
 heat has somewhat the same effect on our flesh as 
 it has on an egg. In fact, heat cooks and kills our 
 flesh exactly as it does the egg. It makes no differ- 
 ence whether it is dry heat (hot iron, flame) or wet 
 heat (steam, hot liquids) or the sun's rays or an 
 electric current. The effect is the same. 
 
 Three Degrees of Burns 
 
 Of course some burns are worse than others, 
 and a bad burn needs treatment that is very dif- 
 ferent from the treatment that you would give to 
 a slight one. For convenience, we say that there 
 are three degrees of burns, and distinguish them by 
 the depth to which the heat penetrates. 
 
 84 
 
BURNS AND FROSTBITES 85 
 
 First Degree 
 
 After a first degree burn you find the skin red- 
 dened and smarting a little ; but unless the damage 
 is spread over a large area there is no danger. You 
 know that the surface of the skin is hardened, for 
 you feel uncomfortable — probably much as a snake 
 feels before it sheds its coat — and the skin certainly 
 is killed, for in three or four days it begins to 
 come off in tiny white patches, leaving healthy new 
 skin underneath. Burns of this degree are, fortu- 
 na,tely, more common than those of other degrees. 
 
 The commonest cause of first degree burns is 
 sunshine — the ordinary sunburn without blisters. 
 It occurs under other conditions, of course — for in- 
 stance, when you pass too near a flame or dip your 
 hand into very hot water, or spill some liquid on the 
 hot stove and let a cloud of steam rise in your face. 
 
 The simplest treatment is to cover the burn 
 with baking soda, or to keep round it cloths wet 
 with a solution of baking soda — one teaspoonful to 
 a pint of water. Greasy substances relieve the pain 
 a great deal, such as olive oil, castor oil, Carron oil 
 (linseed oil and lime water, equal parts), lard and 
 carbolized vaseline. Cold compresses help. Picric 
 acid gauze is excellent. None of these, except the 
 last, should be used where the skin is broken, for 
 fear of infection. 
 
86 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Second Degree 
 
 Second degree burns are followed not only by 
 redness but also by blisters, because the injury to 
 the skin has penetrated to the lower layers. These 
 swell and the skin is lifted up in humps filled with 
 fluid. At the same time there is considerable pain. 
 
 The only difference in the causes of first and 
 second degree bums is that in the second degree 
 the heat is greater or is in contact with the skin 
 for a longer time. Severe sunburn is the com- 
 monest example of this kind of burn. 
 
 Sunburn deserves an extra word in regard to 
 prevention — an ounce of which, you know, is bet- 
 ter than a pound of cure. Each summer, in spite 
 of warnings and previous sad experience, blister- 
 ing sunburn adorns — or rather disfigures — the arms 
 and shoulders of thousands of boys and men. They 
 are the ones who try to get "a good tan" in a single 
 day and the result is — misery. A good scout does 
 not allow himself to be caught napping by Old 
 Sol. He exposes his arms and shoulders gradually 
 — half an hour the first day, an hour the second 
 and so on until his skin has become accustomed to 
 the sun — and every morning he rubs on a little 
 olive oil, which keeps his skin from cracking and 
 helps to make a perfect tan. 
 
 A second degree burn is dangerous for two rea- 
 
BURNS AND FROSTBITES 87 
 
 sons : first, because, if it covers a large area of the 
 body, the intense and continuous pain that it causes 
 is very likely to bring on shock; second, if the skin 
 of the blisters is rubbed off, a raw surface is left 
 which is easily infected. 
 
 In treating second degree burns, therefore, you 
 must watch for shock and treat that first; leave the 
 rest to the doctor. If you cannot reach him for 
 hours, wash the blisters with alcohol and prick them 
 
 (cross tectioit) 
 
 with a needle dropped in alcohol or made red hot in 
 a match flame. Prick them near the good skin and 
 press the contents out with a clean cloth, putting 
 pressure first on the side opposite the prick. If they 
 riefill, re-empty them, with the same care against in- 
 fection. Always cover them with a sterile gauze com- 
 press. Never use absorbent cotton next to a wound ; 
 the fibers stick and prevent rapid healing; bandage 
 it in place on top of the gauze compress if you wish. 
 If the burned skin round the blisters is unbroken, 
 apply to it the remedies spoken of above; but wher- 
 ever it is broken or rubbed off, that place must be 
 
88 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 treated as an open wound" and covered with a dry 
 sterile dressing. If there is dirt on the raw sur- 
 face, paint it with tincture of iodine or alcohol, 70 
 per cent, before putting on the compress. 
 
 Third Degree 
 
 In third degree burns the damage extends to the 
 flesh below the skin. You will see that the skin is 
 blackened and cracked and perhaps that it has 
 fallen away from the flesh in places. The pain is 
 terrific 'and deep shock comes on almost imme- 
 diately. 
 
 Such a bum is usually the result of getting the 
 clothes on fire or of falling into a tub or a tank 
 of hot liquid or of coming into contact with a 
 heavy current of electricity. 
 
 First aid for a bad burn like this is mainly to 
 treat shock and to get the patient to a doctor or to 
 a hospital as quickly as possible. If the burn covers 
 one-third or more of the body he will almost cer- 
 tainly die in a few hours. You have no time to 
 spend in worrying about infection. Wrap up the 
 burned parts in the cleanest cloths you can find — 
 either dry or wet with baking soda in water — wrap 
 the patient warmly in blankets, stimulate him, keep 
 him quiet and see that a doctor reaches him without 
 delay. 
 
BURNS AND FROSTBITES 89 
 
 Warning 
 
 It is strange but true that a big first or second 
 degree burn is worse than a small third degree bum. 
 So always watch your patient for shock and be 
 ready to treat him for it. 
 
 Never pull clothes off a burned surface, for fear 
 of pulling off skin with them. Cut round the bum 
 and leave an island of cloth for the doctor to re- 
 move. 
 
 FROSTBITE 
 
 In cold weather you may suddenly realize that 
 your toe, finger, nose or ear has lost its feeling. If 
 it is white you can be sure that it is frozen. 
 
 The treatment is not to warm it quickly, but to 
 rub it hard first with snow, then with cold water. 
 Very slowly use warmer and warmer water until 
 the skin gets back its pink color. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Burns, unless small, are always serious injuries. 
 Watch for shock. Extensive bums are frequently 
 fatal within a few hours. 
 Burns are of three degrees : 
 First: Reddening of skin with burning sensa- 
 tion. Treatment — baking soda as powder or 
 in water, olive, castor or Carron oil, lard, 
 carbolized vaseline, wet compresses. 
 
90 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Second: Reddened skin, blisters, swelling of 
 part, pain, perhaps shock. Treatment — 
 prick blisters with sterile needle, use reme- 
 dies as above, cover raw surfaces with sterile 
 compresses, get a doctor. 
 
 Third: Scorched or blackened skin, swelling of 
 part, perhaps skin cleaves away from the 
 flesh, terrific pain, great shock. Treat for 
 shock, cover bums with clean cloths, dry or 
 wet in baking soda water. Get a doctor. 
 
 Frostbite is known by the white color of the part 
 and the lack of sensation in it. Treatment: rub 
 with ice or snow and cold water; use warm water 
 very slowly. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 POISONING 
 
 Someone once said that a weed is a flower gone 
 astray. In the same way it is true that a poison is 
 a good substance in the wrong place. Almost all 
 the poisons may be used in small quantities as 
 medicine for various diseases without harming the 
 patient; and many of the things that we swallow 
 every day without thinking of any danger would 
 become poisons if we took enough of them. Coffee 
 and tea contain poisons, in small quantity, and to- 
 bacco is so poisonous that at first it often makes 
 the person sick who tries to smoke it. Copper is 
 a poison, yet peas, beans, oysters and bread con- 
 tain traces of it. Horse-radish belongs to a poi- 
 sonous family of plants, while many seeds, notably 
 apple seeds, almonds and peach stones, contain 
 traces of one of the most violent poisons known. 
 And so on. Remember that this is true even when 
 these articles of food are as pure as we can get 
 them. 
 
 Poisons, you see, are not always fatal. A few 
 of them work very quickly — so quickly that even 
 
 91 
 
92 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 if a doctor were near at hand he would not be able 
 to save the patient; but most of them work more 
 slowly, so that, just as in hemorrhage, you have 
 time to stop and think what you shall do. 
 
 Two Things to Do 
 
 Two things you must do in every case. Those 
 are to empty the stomach of the poison that is in 
 it, and to give an antidote. An antidote is some- 
 thing that prevents the poison from injuring the 
 body. 
 
 If a doctor could treat the patient immediately 
 he would put a long rubber tube down the man's 
 gullet and through it wash the poison out of his 
 stomach. You will not be able to do that, of course. 
 The best you can do is to make the man vomit. 
 Very often you will find that he has already vom- 
 ited ; it is Nature's way, when we have taken some 
 harmful thing into our stomachs, to make us throw 
 it up. Do not be content with that, but make the 
 patient vomit again. The easiest way to do that 
 is to get him to open his mouth wide and then to 
 tickle the back of his throat with a feather or a 
 straw. Of the emetics (substances that cause vom- 
 iting) the commonest is a large quantity of luke- 
 warm water — a quart is none too much for a grown 
 person. Soap suds is excellent — make it out of 
 laundry soap and warm water and give a glassful. 
 
POISONING 
 
 93 
 
 Another is a teaspoonful of mustard in a glass of 
 warm water. If you have reason to think that 
 there is more of the poison still in the stomach give 
 the patient a good drink of water and then make 
 him vomit again ; this is almost as effective as wash- 
 ing out his stomach with a tube. 
 
 lANTIDOTEs] Il.l3j. * ■ 
 
 But when you have finished with this you have 
 done only half the trick. Remember that the in- 
 side of the stomach is a mucous membrane — a soft, 
 moist surface, and that a good deal of the poison 
 will stick there in spite of all the washing you can 
 give it. You must give an antidote to counteract 
 that remaining poison. 
 
 In the back of a diary you will probably find a 
 list of poisons and their antidotes. Notice that 
 
94 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 there is a different antidote for almost every poi- 
 son. Don't try to remember all of them ; even doc- 
 tors don't attempt that. Fortunately, milk and eggs 
 or a gruel of milk and flour is an excellent first 
 aid antidote for almost all the poisons ; but the giv- 
 ing of it does not excuse you from calling a doctor 
 as soon as you can. 
 
 Another thing that must be watched is the general 
 condition of the patient. Shock follows very often 
 both from the effect of the poisons and from the 
 great pain that some of them cause. You must 
 treat this, also. 
 
 What Two Scouts Did 
 
 Malcolm Flagg and Fred Derry, on their way 
 to join their patrol, which was camping at Crystal 
 Lake, came upon a man who had intentionally poi- 
 soned himself. He lay beside the road groaning 
 and near him was a blue bottle with the word "Poi- 
 son" stamped in the glass. He already regretted 
 his act and when the boys bent over him he begged 
 them to bring help. Malcolm spent a few seconds in 
 trying to find out what the man had taken, but the 
 fellow did not seem to be capable of telling. So 
 Malcolm, who was a first-class scout, wasted no 
 more time in that, but thrust the bottle into Fred's 
 hand and told him to run to a house that they had 
 
POISONING , 95 
 
 passed half a mile back and telephone for a doctor. 
 As Fred dashed up the road Malcolm opened his 
 knapsack and took out a cake of soap; then he 
 rushed down to a brook that flowed through the 
 woods on the other side of the road, and pres- 
 ently he was giving the poisoned man a cupful of 
 very soapy water. That had the desired effect. 
 After the fellow had vomited twice Malcolm 
 wrapped him in the blanket that he was carrying to 
 camp. Then he mixed some of the pancake flour 
 from his provision bag with some water and gave 
 a pint of the gruel to the man. 
 
 Ten minutes later Fred and a doctor came speed- 
 ing up in an automobile and after a quick exami- 
 nation the doctor turned to the two scouts and said : 
 "It was lucky that you chaps happened along. This 
 fellow's going to be all right, but he wouldn't have' 
 had much chance if you hadn't known just what to 
 do." 
 
 That was good scouting. If you would do as 
 well some time remember these things: when you 
 find a person who has taken poison, first spend a 
 few seconds trying to discover what the poison 
 is; second, send for a doctor, telling him if you 
 can what poison has been taken; third, make the 
 patient vomit and at the same time keep him warm 
 and look for shock; fourth, when he has emptied 
 his stomach well, and if you do not yet know what 
 
96 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 poison he has taken, give him three eggs beaten 
 up in a pint of milk, or a pint of milk-and-flour 
 gruel. Then let him rest till the doctor comes and 
 stimulate him if necessary. 
 
 There are a few special antidotes that are easy 
 to remember. White patches around and in the 
 mouth are usually the result of burning with either 
 strong acids or strong alkalies. There is no way 
 of telling the difiference between them that will 
 hold good in every case. If the bottle or package 
 from which the poison came is not labeled, you 
 may perhaps judge which it is by remembering 
 that the patches burned with acids are likely to 
 be hard and dry, and those burned with alkalies 
 are usually soft and rather slimy. If you suspect 
 an acid, give an alkali as an antidote — such as two 
 or three teaspoonfuls of baking soda, or a glass of 
 lime water — not lime juice; remember that there 
 is lime in plaster, and if nothing else is handy, 
 crush a small piece of plaster from the wall and 
 mix it with the water; your last choice would be 
 a teaspoonful of wood ashes in water. 
 
 If you suspect an alkali, you must give an 
 acid as an antidote — such as vinegar or lemon 
 juice. 
 
 Carbolic acid, or phenol, is not really an acid, 
 and does not behave like one. It burns like an 
 alkali and leaves its smell strongly on the breath. 
 
POISONING 97 
 
 The antidote is dilute alcohol and the eggs and 
 milk as above. Sylpho-nathol (formerly called 
 sulpho-naphthol) is sometimes taken by people; it 
 makes them thoroughly sick, but is only mildly 
 dangerous and needs only the usual treatment. 
 
 Tablets of bichloride of mercury (or corrosive 
 sublimate, called also "antiseptic tablets"), are 
 sometimes taken by people who try to kill them- 
 selves. The treatment is to induce vomiting and to 
 give milk and eggs, as described above; but other 
 effects of the poison may come on several days or a 
 week later, so that a doctor ought to see the patient 
 every day for at least a week. 
 
 Compounds of arsenic are much used for kill- 
 ing vermin. Paris green and Rough on Rats con- 
 tain much of it. Your treatment will be the gen- 
 eral treatment above, for the special antidote is a 
 certain uncommon chemical. However, the dirty 
 liquid obtained by boiling a double handful of 
 rusty nails or other rusty iron in a pint or more 
 of water for fifteen minutes may help a good deal 
 as an antidote and should be given. 
 
 Another Kind of Poisoning 
 
 All those poisons that we have been speaking 
 about show effects immediately after a person 
 has swallowed them; but there are other kinds 
 
98 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 of poisons that show effects later. These are the 
 poisons in food. Sometimes the food has spoiled 
 and so has become poisonous, as in the case of de- 
 cayed fish or meat; sometimes it contained poison- 
 ous substances even when fresh, as in many of 
 the mushrooms and mussels. Some persons are 
 poisoned by certain articles of food, though the 
 food may be harmless to others. 
 
 At any rate, if a person begins to have a severe 
 stomach ache from half an hour to two or three 
 hours after he has eaten, and rapidly becomes more 
 ill, with vomiting and diarrhea and headache, you 
 may be fairly sure that what he ate is disagreeing 
 with him; or you may say, if you like, that his 
 food has poisoned him. It is what is called 
 "ptomaine poisoning." 
 
 In a case like that the poisonous substance, what- 
 ever it may be, has got beyond his stomach and 
 into his intestines. If the patient has vomited sev- 
 eral times his stomach is probably pretty empty, 
 so that you needn't worry about that. It is quite 
 likely, too, that he will not be able to keep milk 
 and eggs on his stomach. The thing to do now is 
 to get the irritating substances out of his intestines. 
 Do this with a dose of Epsom salts — four level 
 teaspoonfuls for children and eight level teaspoon- 
 fuls for grown-ups, dissolved in a fvdl glass or 
 more of water; or give one or two Seidlitz powders. 
 
POISONING 99 
 
 That will hurry the enemy out of the body and 
 lessen its chances of doing harm. 
 
 Sometimes the vomiting is so continuous that 
 even the salts are thrown up. In that case try 
 giving the patient cracked ice to eat; often that 
 will stop the vomiting till the salts can work. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Treatment for poisons that show immediate ef- 
 fects, such as pain in mouth, throat or stomach 
 (upper third of abdomen) or burned or discolored 
 patches in mouth or throat: 
 
 I Send for doctor, telling him if possible what 
 the poison is. 
 . 2 Empty the patient's stomach by inducing him 
 to vomit one or more times. 
 Cause vomiting by: 
 
 a. Tickling throat. 
 
 b. Giving large amounts of lukewarm 
 
 water, or 
 
 c. Strong soap suds, or 
 
 d. One teaspoon ful mustard in a glass of 
 
 warm water. 
 
 3 Give antidote. Best general antidote is three 
 
 eggs beaten in a pint of milk, or a pint of 
 milk-and-flour gruel. 
 
 4 Watch for shock and treat it with warmth 
 
100 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 and stimulation (blankets, heaters, aro- 
 matic spirits of ammonia, J4 teaspoonful in 
 a little water). 
 
 Treatment for poisons (usually in food) that 
 show effects half an hour to two or three hours 
 after eating, such as severe cramp-like pains all over 
 the abdomen, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, shock: 
 
 1 Send for doctor, telling what has been eaten. 
 
 2 Cause vomiting as above, if patient has not 
 
 already vomited. 
 
 3 Give antidotes as above, plus one to two heap- 
 
 ing tablespoonfuls of Epsom salts in a full 
 glass of water, or one or two Seidlitz pow- 
 ders, followed by more water. 
 
 4 Watch for shock and treat it 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 BANDAGES AND CARRIES 
 
 The postman recently brought us a letter from 
 a scoutmaster whose troop has lately become fa- 
 mous for its good work in bandaging. We had 
 written to him for advice, asking what his method 
 of instruction was. Here is his letter : 
 
 Dear Sirs: — 
 
 In reply to your recent letter asking how I teach 
 bandaging to my troop, I want to tell you an ex- 
 perience that we had last May. 
 
 With twenty-four members of my troop and 
 one assistant scoutmaster I was on a camping trip 
 in the Black Hills. We had planned to follow 
 what was said to be an old Indian trail and camp 
 each day at the first good place we could find when 
 the sun began to sink. 
 
 On a Tuesday morning we started rather late 
 to go through Calico Pass and down into the valley 
 of Beaver Stream. Early in the afternoon we 
 had reached the point of highest altitude — thirty- 
 five hundred feet according to our maps — when 
 
 lOI 
 
102 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 clouds swept down upon us and brought a cold 
 rain that presently turned to sleet. We hurried 
 along the trail in single file with heads bent low 
 to the storm and in the course of half an hour 
 descended below the tree-line and entered a 
 scraggy growth of spruce. Still it rained, and we 
 were facing the unpleasant prospect of pitching 
 pur pup-tents on the wet ground, when suddenly 
 we rounded a ledge and came upon a log cabin 
 half hidden in a dense growth of hemlocks. One 
 of the boys gave a shout and we all rushed forward. 
 The door was latched, but opened readily when we 
 pushed on the handle. Inside we found one long 
 room with bunks ranged along the log walls, and 
 a wide stone fireplace at the further end. Two 
 windows — one in the middle of each long side — 
 gave sufficient light to reveal that the place was 
 unoccupied and apparently had been in that condi- 
 tion for some time. We could not have asked for 
 finer shelter from the storm and with "light hearts 
 we set about the pleasant task of making ourselves 
 comfortable. Soon we had a fire going and had 
 cooked an appetizing meal of soup and rice. 
 
 We had finished eating and the twenty-six of us 
 were sitting near the fire listening to the beating 
 of the rain and the soughing of the wind when 
 the unexpected happened. I had taken out our 
 first-aid kit and was cleaning a knife cut on Leon 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 103 
 
 Stewart's thumb when we were all somewhat 
 startled to hear the sound of footsteps and a thump 
 at the door of the cabin. As we turned, the door 
 swung open and into the light of our candles and 
 of our fireplace blaze stepped one of the largest 
 men that I have ever seen. He actually had to 
 stoop as he crossed the threshold. Rubber boots 
 were on his feet and he carried a fishing rod. 
 
 "Well, well!" he cried. "What's all this?" 
 
 I stepped forward immediately, explained who 
 we were and how we happened to be in the moun- 
 tains and invited him to have some supper. 
 
 "We're both in the same boat," said our visitor; 
 "I've been fishing in Beaver Stream and got caught 
 by the storm too. No, I don't want anything to 
 eat, thanks. I had some supper in my pack, and 
 ate it coming up the trail. But I'll spend the night 
 with you. This old cabin used to belong to a club 
 of sportsmen who came up here every year, but they 
 don't come any more and we're welcome to use 
 it all right. What's that?" 
 
 The fisherman pointed to our first-aid kit, and 
 I lifted it from the floor and put it in his hands. 
 
 "So you're boy scouts, are you?" he said as he 
 took a roller bandage from the box. "Do you know 
 how to use all these things ? I've heard that scouts 
 are pretty clever." 
 
 "Well," said I, "we don't know as much about 
 
104 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 bandaging as we wish we did; we need someone 
 to show us more about it." 
 
 At that a strange twinkle came into the eyes of 
 our fisherman visitor. "Perhaps I can help you a 
 little," he said. 
 
 "You might bandage up this boy's thumb," I 
 said, pointing to Leon. 
 
 "Come here, son," said the big man, and almost 
 before we had time to see what he was doing he 
 had deftly and neatly bandaged Leon's hand. His 
 fingers moved with almost incredible swiftness and 
 I realized instantly that our visitor was a doctor 
 and an expert with bandages. 
 
 "You must give us a demonstration," I said, and 
 all of the boys crowded round and cried, "Yes, 
 show us how you do it." 
 
 "All right," said he, "but first let me take off 
 my rubber boots ; they're too hot in here." 
 
 A moment later he stood in his stocking feet, 
 a mountain of a man, holding up a roller bandage. 
 
 "The main business of this is to go on over 
 dressings and hold them in place. Of course you 
 must never put it next to a wound except when it 
 is sterilized or made of very clean cloth. A roller 
 also makes a good tourniquet, and by putting it 
 round a boy's neck and under his forearm you 
 can use it as a sling, but the triangular is better 
 at that. 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 105 
 
 "When you buy roller bandages in the stores 
 they are usually gauze, and sterilized, too. That's 
 why you can use them without a dressing if you 
 have to and if you are careful not to touch the 
 part that goes next to the wound. Of course, 
 you can make them at home out of clean cotton 
 cloth. Usually they are about ten yards long and 
 
 HoW to mia a roner bay\A(u:^e 
 
 one inch to six inches wide— three inches is most 
 useful. 
 
 "First of all you must learn to hold the roller 
 like this, so that you can either squeeze it and pull 
 it tight or let it go loose enough to unroll in your 
 hand." 
 
 The big man held the bandage up for all of us 
 to see. 
 
 "Then," he went on, "you must always stand 
 directly, in front of whatever you are going to 
 bandage, and not to one side of it; and if you are 
 right-handed the bandage always goes from left 
 to right across the top of the hand or foot. You 
 
lo6 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 anchor it by taking sevieral straight turns round 
 the limb; and when you are through you either 
 double it back on itself (see figure on page 124) to 
 make two ends to tie, or else split it down the mid- 
 dle for a way, knot it to prevent raveling and tie 
 the two ends round the limb. Sometimes you hold 
 the end in place with a bit of adhesive tape — what 
 
 NOT 
 
 we doctors call surgeons' plaster. That makes the 
 bandage look neat. 
 
 "And now you've got to promise me one thing 
 before I show you anything more. You must 
 never put the roller on backside to. Always make 
 it face out, always, with this one exception^ — when 
 you're using the spiral reverse bandage, which I'll 
 show you presently. But before I do that let me 
 show you the circular — the easiest of the roller 
 tricks. 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 107 
 
 Circular 
 
 "Just wind it round and round; that's all there 
 is to it, wherever the arm or leg is the same size 
 for a little way — ankle, wrist, upper arm, neck and 
 head. But just as soon as you put it where the 
 arm or the leg is growing smaller or bigger — like 
 the calf, forearm, thigh, and instep — that doesn't 
 work. A bandage can't hold on well unless both 
 its edges are flat on the skin. If you try to put 
 it on from ankle to knee, for instance, with plain 
 circular turns, you will soon find out that its lower 
 edges are loose. Once when I was stopping at a 
 village forty miles down the valley I was called 
 to fix up a young man who had fallen against a 
 mowing machine. Someone had got hold of a 
 roller bandage and had wound it round his leg from 
 ankle to knee ; it was all in loops and bunches. 
 
 Spiral Reverse 
 
 "How do you prevent that? Watch!" The big 
 man beckoned to one of the boys who had taken 
 his puttees and stockings off and began to put the 
 bandage on his leg. "This is one of Mr. Roller 
 Bandage's prettiest tricks and rather hard to learn," 
 he said. "You will have to pay very close at- 
 tention. 
 
io8 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 "If you should start in at the ankle and bandage 
 upward with circular turns, always keeping the 
 cloth flat on the skin, you would make a very poor 
 job of it and leave a lot of the calf uncovered. 
 The reverse spiral or spiral reverse trick stops that. 
 When the circular turns begin to separate rapidly, 
 
 stop winding. Put your left thumb on the lower 
 edge of the last turn, to hold it there, and slacken 
 the part between your two hands. Turn your right 
 hand over toward you, so that the top edge of the 
 bandage is now the bottom edge, and the inside 
 becomes the outside. Move your right hand a 
 little toward you and then down toward the foot, 
 always keeping the bandage slack, until the fold 
 lies just above your left thumb. Catch it there with 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 109 
 
 your thumb. Make the next turn round the leg, 
 keeping the lower edge always the same distance 
 from the last lower edge: that keeps the bandage 
 even. Continue that all the way up to just below the 
 knee. Every other turn the bandage is wrong side 
 out, but it doesn't make any difference, for it comes 
 
 out all right. Isn't that a great trick? Here, two 
 or three of you fellows try it." 
 
 He took a handful of bandages from the first- 
 aid kit and tossed them to the boys, who were now 
 watching his every move as if he were a conjurer 
 about to produce rabbits out of a hat. 
 
 "Notice that the folds where the reverses come 
 are all on the outside of the leg, and not over the 
 shin bone ; a row of folds over the bone would hurt 
 after a while." 
 
no 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 "But what do you do when you get to the knee?" 
 asked Andy McLoren, one of my patrol leaders. 
 
 Figure of Eight 
 
 "Figure of eight," said the doctor. "Nearly al- 
 ways use it when you go round a right-angled cor- 
 ner, like the heel or the bent elbow; or across a 
 joint that may need to be used a little after the 
 bandage is in place. It's called that because when 
 
 e ^r ■foot 
 
 you use it you make first the upper loop and then 
 the lower, always crossing in the same place. If 
 you can imagine taking a figure eight and bending 
 it in the middle, you'll see what I mean. At the 
 ankle, for example, you take several turns round 
 the smallest part of the kg, bring the bandage across 
 the instep, make the second turn round the foot, 
 cross the instep again, round the ankle, and so on, 
 till you have finished, leaving the heel uncovered. 
 The same at the knee. When you have carried the 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES in 
 
 spiral reverse bandage to a point a little below the 
 joint, take a turn just above the kneecap, then one 
 just below, crossing the bandage behind the knee. 
 Continue this, letting each turn above the knee go a 
 little higher, and each one below a little lower, until 
 everything below the joint is covered in. Then 
 cpntinue up the thigh with another series of reverse 
 spirals." 
 
 Testudo 
 
 "But suppose I fall down and skin the tip of my 
 elbow; isn't there some way of piitting a bandage 
 on it?" I asked. 
 
 ^aYiodae 
 
 303. 
 
 "Of course there is," said our visitor. "When 
 you get to the elbow or the heel (and, by the way, 
 the elbow should always be bent at right angles 
 when you do it up), put one turn of the bandage 
 
112 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 directly over the point; the next turn goes so that 
 two-thirds of its width is above the point, and the 
 next the same distance below. The next is clear 
 of the point and a little above it, and the next is 
 similarly placed below it. Each new turn creeps 
 a little away from the point of the joint, and now 
 you find it is going on like a figure of eight. When 
 you have finished, the whole joint is covered in. 
 That trick is called the testudo. If you don't know 
 what that means, look at the picture of a testudq in 
 the dictionary." 
 
 "Seems to me I used to read about them in 
 Caesar, when I was in the high school," said I. 
 "Didn't the Roman soldiers make a testudo by 
 standing one behind the other and lapping their 
 shields over their heads, so that arrows couldn't 
 get through that iron roof ?" 
 
 "That's it exactly : the turns lap over each other 
 just like the shields. Now here's another bandage 
 that has a Latin name — the recurrent. 
 
 Recurrent 
 
 "When you want to cover in the toes or the 
 fingers, or one finger, or the top of the head, you 
 lay the bandage back and forth across the part 
 until it is all covered in and then keep it in place 
 with a few circular turns. You will probably have 
 to pin it too. 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 113 
 
 Spica 
 
 "Then there's the spica — a word that means a 
 spike or ear. The turns of this bandage resemble 
 the arrangement of the husks on an ear of com, 
 but it's really nothing mote than a figure of eight 
 with one turn bigger than the other. It's used 
 high up on the thigh and for the shoulder. One 
 turn goes round the thigh or the arm and the next 
 round the waist or the trunk, under the other arm. 
 
 Triangular 
 
 "Those are all the roller bandages that you'll 
 
 have any use for. Let's take a look now at this." 
 
 As the doctor spoke he pulled a tringular band- 
 
 Jlnex. 
 
 ovtd 
 
 age out of the kit and held it up for all of us to 
 see. Of course we had seen triangular bandages 
 before, but somehow this one which the big fisher- 
 man-doctor held up in the flickering light that 
 
114 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 illumined our log cabin shelter looked more inter- 
 esting than any triangular bandage had ever looked 
 before. 
 
 "The main advantage of this over the roller is 
 that you can find it anywhere. Take a piece of 
 cloth a yard square, fold it diagonally and cut it 
 down the crease. That makes two of them. You 
 can make them out of a shirt, or a skirt, or a sheet, 
 
 Cna/at Dcuuli 
 
 
 aae — -ii 
 "^■SrowicL trixmafs Bcmdaiie 
 •fiist ioU •-* *v- / 
 
 \ 
 
 V 
 
 / 
 
 or even a piece of paper. Aiid you can use them 
 either open, like this, or folded into a cravat which 
 you can use like a short piece of a roller. For ex- 
 ample : round an ankle or a wrist, or over an eye, 
 or for the palm of the hand. The long edge is 
 the base, the point opposite is the apex, and the 
 other two points are the ends." 
 
 We were getting more and more interested and 
 at this moment Mr. Simmons, my assistant scout-i 
 master, suggested that the doctor show us the 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 115 
 
 best ways of covering different parts of the body. 
 
 "Well," said he, "let's have a volunteer 'injured 
 man.' Who wants to be bandaged ?" 
 
 At his words half a dozen of the boys sprang 
 
 /jnanquSar 
 \P.3^ / bandaae 
 
 V ^ 
 
 forward. He chose Reddy Lane. "Step over here 
 by the fire where it's warm and strip down to your 
 running pants," he said, and Reddy began throw- 
 ing off his clothes as if he were racing to be "first 
 in" at the swimming pool. 
 
 Head 
 
 The doctor took the triangular, and laying the 
 middle of its base on Lane's forehead, drew the 
 apex tack over his hair and the two points straight 
 back just above hia ears. I found when I tried 
 
ii6 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 it afterward that if I crooked my fingers round the 
 ends and held them tight I could keep the whole 
 base tight round the head (this is the important 
 thing) and have my thumbs and other fingers free 
 to fold in the apex over the back of the head. The 
 doctor tied the points together over the apex with 
 
 1- f 
 
 banoaae lorkeao 
 
 half a square knot. Then he pulled the apex down 
 to tighten the whole bandage and carried it up 
 over the half knot, with the result that, when he 
 finished the knot, the apex was firmly held between 
 the two halves of the square knot. I noticed that 
 Ted Harris, who had won our competition in knot 
 tying, was watching the doctor keenly when he 
 tied that knot, but he didn't catch him making a 
 granny. 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 117 
 
 Single Melon 
 
 Next the big man showed us a very pretty trick. 
 He called it the single melon. He began at the mid- 
 
 dle of Reddy's forehead, low down, and went 
 straight back over the top of his head to below 
 the bump on the back of it; then forward, going 
 a little to one side, but being very careful to come 
 
ii8 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 to the same point on the forehead; back again, go- 
 ing to the other side. Each time he went a little 
 farther from the middle, but always came to the 
 same points back and front. Soon his layers 
 reached the ears, when he took a few turns round 
 the head, pinned the points where the layers re- 
 versed, and said, "This is really nothing except a 
 recurrent bandage. 
 
 Double Melon 
 
 "But the double melon, which needs two band- 
 ages, is better," he added when he had unwound 
 the roller. 
 
 "The last time I used this," he said, "I put it 
 on the head of a boy who had got six inches of 
 his scalp laid open when an ax flew out of the 
 hands of one of his friends who was cutting down 
 a tree. 
 
 "One goes round and round, the other is recur- 
 rent. After a few turns of No. i, No. 2 is tied to 
 it in the middle of the back and goes straight for- 
 ward over the top of the head. No. i goes forward 
 round the head just above the ear and crosses on 
 top of No. 2 on the forehead. No. 2 then folds 
 backward, being held in place by No. i. Keep on 
 till the whole head is covered. No pins are needed 
 here and the bandage, if properly put on, will not 
 come off. It is really a single melon (represented 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 119 
 
 by No. 2) held on by circular turns (represented, 
 by No. I)." 
 
 Second roffar 
 
 Sccovuf rofle** 
 
 •-* roifer ' 
 
 Cfirst ronev 
 
 SecoiufrDHer 
 
 ^ Uoulble meW vanoaqe 
 
 Eye or Ear 
 
 He folded the triangular into a cravat and, cov- 
 ering one eye or ear, tied the bandage round the 
 head. With the roller he then did the same thing. 
 
I20 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Jaw 
 
 "For the jaw," said the doctor, "the four-tailed 
 bandage is the best." He drew us a picture of it 
 
 y — >. Goncfaae 
 
 on a leaf of a note book and while the boys were 
 passing it round he showed that two cravat 
 bandages or two pieces of roller would do as 
 well. 
 
 Shoulder 
 
 For this part of Reddy's anatomy he used the 
 spica. He took several circular turns round the 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 121 
 
 middle of the upper arm and then began to climb. 
 After each turn about the arm he now took a big 
 turn about the body, going under the other arm. 
 When the shoulder was covered in he tied his ends 
 round the arm. 
 
 With the triangular he then bandaged Reddy's 
 other shoulder. He laid his base over the shoulder 
 and across the chest and back so that the apex 
 hung in front of the armpit, tied the ends under 
 the other arm, and, carrying the apex backward 
 under the shoulder, tied it to one of the ends that 
 he had left long for that purpose. 
 
122 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Elbow 
 
 "Now for the elbow. Remember that it should 
 always be bent so that the lower arm is horizontal 
 — unless it is dislocated." First he put a figure of 
 eight and theii a testudo over it, and then showed 
 us that you can do it just as well with the trian- 
 gular. 
 
 He adjusted it so that the middle of its base 
 
 C_/naKujafar 
 
 San^faae ^r cfbow 
 
 was at the middle of the upper arm and its apex 
 hung straight down behind the elbow. He crossed 
 the ends in front of the upper arm, then in- 
 cluded the lower arm between them and tied them, 
 with the apex brought round the point of the elbow 
 and held under the knot. [In the sketch the 
 apex has not yet been brought up under the final 
 knot.] 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 123 
 
 Forearm 
 
 Here the doctor again showed us his spiral re- 
 verse trick, after he had taken a few circular turns 
 round the wrist for an anchor. He finished with 
 more circular turns just below the elbow. 
 
 Palm of Hand 
 
 "Don't forget," said the doctor, as he lifted one 
 of Reddy's hands, "that all hand bandages should 
 be finished round the wrist, in order to hold them 
 on surely." Then, putting the middle of a tri- 
 angular, folded into a cravat, across Reddy's palm, 
 he crossed it on the hack of the hand, and finished 
 by tying the ends round the wrist. With the roller 
 he did the same for the other hand. 
 
 Whole Hand 
 
 I was interested in this, for often men get their 
 hands torn badly in machinery. He untied the tri- 
 angular from Reddy's hand and spread it out on 
 a box that stood near the fireplace ; at his direction 
 Reddy laid his hand, palm down, on it so that his 
 finger tips reached halfway to the apex. The 
 doctor then folded the apex over Reddy's hand, 
 brought the ends up, crossed them over the back 
 of the hand and tied them round the wrist. 
 
 With the roller he then did it differently. He 
 
124 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 used the recurrent trick. Beginning on the palm 
 near the wrist, he folded it back and forth over 
 the ends of the fingers to the corresponding point 
 on the back of the hand, laying the turns to right 
 and left until all the fingers were covered. Then 
 with circular turns he covered the whole hand in, 
 beginning at the finger tips and finishing round 
 the wrist. 
 
 Fingers 
 
 He used the same method here, but he hunted 
 round in our kit until he found an inch-wide band- 
 age. Over the back and the front of the whole 
 
 Jm/o cnJsioiie. 
 
 Suayi6a£Ji^ 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 125 
 
 length of the finger he put a recurrent, and held 
 it on with circular turns. At last he went down the 
 back of the hand to the wrist, took a circular turn 
 about it, came back to the finger across the back 
 of the hand, took a few more turns about the 
 finger and finished round the wrist. "If I went 
 to the wrist across the palm," he said, "every 
 time you bent your fingers the bandage would 
 loosen." 
 
 Groin and Thigh 
 
 "Here you use the spica. Round the thigh, round 
 the waist, a little higher round the thigh, round 
 the waist again and so on. That's all. The tri- 
 angular for the groin goes on like a diaper; for 
 the thigh tie the ends round the thigh and pin the 
 apex to your patient's belt. It isn't tight enough 
 for him to walk much with it on, but it'll hold a 
 dressing in place while he lies down." 
 
 Leg, Knee, Foot, Toes, Sprained Ankle 
 
 "There isn't much more," said the doctor as he 
 saw one of the boys yawn, "and there isn't much 
 of Reddy that isn't covered. Bandage the leg 
 just as you do the forearm; foot and toes like 
 hand and fingers. Knee like elbow; ankle, too, 
 except for one thing. That's sprained ankle. Your 
 
126 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 ankle usually turns out when you sprain it — or 
 your foot turns in. That stretches the tendons and 
 ligaments on the outside of your ankle and foot. 
 The bandage must strengthen these and goes on 
 in a special manner. Use the figure of eight ap- 
 plied so that it crosses under the sole from big 
 toe side to little toe side. As it comes up over 
 the instep, pull up hard, bending the foot out, so 
 that the strained tendons and ligaments are slack- 
 ened and their place taken by the tight bandage. 
 Anchor the turn round the ankle, and repeat. You 
 will find that the ankle is much relieved." 
 
 "One more question," I begged. "What about 
 a sling? We know how to do it after a fashion 
 but perhaps you know a better way." 
 
 Sling 
 
 "Lay the triangular flat," said the doctor; "put 
 your elbow on the- apex and your fingers at the 
 middle of the base; tie the points round your neck 
 with your forearm held horizontal. Be sure to 
 have it support your whole hand. Then fold the 
 apex over your elbow in such a way as to support 
 it a little, and pin it there. 
 
 "If you want to use the roller for a sling, make 
 a sort of figure of eight. Take a loop round your 
 wrist, go round your neck, another loop round 
 your forearm near, the elbow, round your neck 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 127 
 
 again, and so on till you have support enough for 
 the arm. 
 
 "As for a tourniquet, use the triangular as a 
 cravat with a stick or use several lengths of the 
 
 \ifus cn6 co¥ne& 
 . AtoLEFT 
 
 olivua TOrarTKu 
 
 roller. There, boys, that's pretty near all I know- 
 about bandages." 
 
 "Well, sir," said I, "I can't tell you how much 
 you have done for me and my troop tonight. For 
 a long time we've been anxious to learn just the 
 things you've shown us." 
 
128 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 "You're welcome!" said the doctor. "And now 
 I guess it's about time we turned in. Well, I 
 should say so!" he exclaimed as he pulled out 
 his watch. Much to our surprise it was eleven 
 o'clock. 
 
 The whole evening made a great impression on 
 us. We rolled up in our blankets and slept soundly 
 in our snug shelter. Next morning when we woke 
 the storm had passed and the sun was shining. 
 The doctor ate breakfast with us and then we said 
 good-by, for he was going back to his fishing. We 
 never saw him again, but none of us will ever for- 
 get that night in the log cabin with the rain beat- 
 ing down on our shelter and that mountain of a 
 man standing in his stocking feet and by the waver- 
 ing light of candles and fireplace putting band- 
 ages all over Reddy Lane. The troop has taken 
 a tremendous interest in bandaging since our trip 
 over the old Indian trail to Calico Pass. 
 
 So there you are. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 H S. A . 
 
 A fine letter. Worth quoting — every word. In 
 addition remember these things : 
 
 A bandage should be snug, not tight. If you 
 put it on a leg or an arm, look at the fingers or 
 toes in an hour. If they are pink and warm the 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 129 
 
 bandage is not too tight; if they are colorless and 
 cold loosen the bandage immediately. Watch care- 
 fully, especially if the bandage is put on soon after 
 an injury. The part may swell much and choke 
 itself against the bandage. 
 
 Never use a bandage wet; it will shrink and be- 
 come tight as it dries. 
 
 Use too much bandage rather than too little. 
 
 LIFTS AND CARRIES 
 
 After you have been first aider to your injured 
 friend you may have to be legs for him too. If 
 you are alone with someone who has fainted or 
 who is unconscious and wish to move him a short 
 distance — say across the room to a window — or to 
 lift him from floor to bed, the best method is what 
 may be called 
 
 The Transfer Lift 
 
 Put one arm under the patient's knees, the other 
 under his neck and under his farther arm. Be- 
 fore you lift, double the patient till you can grip 
 your two hands together; in this position he is 
 like a huge ball in your arms, through which he 
 cannot slip until you loosen your hands. Most 
 important of all, his head is supported by your 
 arm and cannot hang limply backward. 
 
I30 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 You cannot carry anyone far in this way. If 
 that is necessary, use 
 
 The Fireman's Lift 
 
 This is a maneuver for getting an unconscious 
 person securely on your shoulders. Turn the pa- 
 tient on his face. Straddle him, facing toward his 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 131 
 
 head. Stoop, and with your arms round his chest, 
 lift him to his knees; then, with arms shifted to 
 his abdomen, raise him to his feet. Grasp his left 
 
 o 
 
 iremans 
 
 wrist with your left hand and draw his left arm 
 round your neck, stepping meanwhile to his left 
 side and supporting him with your right arm round 
 his waist. Next, grasp his right wrist with your 
 
132 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 left hand and draw his right arm round your neck, 
 letting his left arm go and bending in front of 
 him, so that now his head and chest lie across your 
 shoulders. Pass your right arm between his legs 
 and round his right thigh. Lift, and settle him com- 
 fortably on your shoulders. Finally, shift his right 
 wrist to your right hand, and with your left hand 
 grasp his left wrist. 
 
 If your patient is not too heavy, you can carry 
 him in this position for some distance, or even 
 up or down a ladder. If necessary, free your left 
 hand and use it. 
 
 The Four-Hand Chair Carry 
 
 When there are two of you to help and the pa- 
 tient is not unconscious the four hand chair carry 
 
 (Uour-kam 
 CRcdr 
 
BANDAGES AND CARRIES 133 
 
 does fairly well for short distances. Connect your 
 four hands as the illustration shows, seat the pa- 
 tient on them and have him put his arms round 
 your necks for balance. 
 
 The Litter 
 
 The word means "a bed." Anything on which 
 a person may be laid and carried about is a litter. 
 You must use one when a patient has a serious 
 wound or a fracture, or must be carried far. 
 
 ^ ^ttcrof Gjois 
 
 «Jv>to coats flo oivtnis avKO o"| 
 OLVui two ao oiA. t(Ic otlM.y' 
 
 '3 
 
 A window blind, an ironing board, a table leaf, 
 a short ladder well padded, a mattress and so forth 
 may be used when a regulation litter is not to be 
 found. 
 
134 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 The coat litter is a good substitute. It is made 
 of two poles six or seven feet long and two — bet- 
 ter four — coats. Have the wearers of the two 
 coats take the ends of the poles in their hands and 
 bend forward till their backs, arms and the poles 
 are in a horizontal straight line. Take hold of the 
 bottom of their buttoned coats and peel them off, 
 inside out, over the wearers' heads until you reach 
 the sleeves. Slip the coat-collars over the wearers' 
 heads, catch the sleeves at the wrist, and complete 
 the business with one pull. Add another pair of 
 coats and the litter is finished. 
 
 Wh9,tever kind of litter you have, lift the pa- 
 tient onto it gently ; he sure that his head, arms and 
 feet do not hang over the edge; carry him feet 
 first except when going up hill ; and to avoid jounc- 
 ing him, break your step. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 
 
 Probably not more than half of us grow to scout 
 age without breaking a bone. It is usually not a 
 serious accident. We remember a few hours of pain 
 followed by a few weeks of keeping the bone still, 
 and then we were as good as new. But some of 
 us have stiff elbows or crooked fingers, and know 
 that a broken bone is not a joke. And we well 
 remember how glad we were, before the doctor 
 came, to have someone take care of us who knew 
 what he was doing. It is decidedly worth while 
 to learn something about fractures and disloca- 
 tions. 
 
 Kinds of Fractures 
 
 A fracture is nothing more or less than a broken 
 bone. There are four important kinds. A fracture 
 is simple when the bone is broken but does not 
 pierce the skin. It is compound when one or both 
 of the fragments are pushed out through the skin, 
 making an open wound. Sometimes the two frag- 
 ments are jammed together end to end so hard 
 that they stick there; this is an impacted fracture. 
 
 135 
 
136 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 And last, the fracture is said to be comminuted if 
 the bone has been crushed into several or many 
 pieces by a heavy weight, such as a tree or a street 
 car. 
 
 To Determine a Fracture 
 
 When you find a person who has fallen or has 
 been struck or has wrenched his arm or leg violently, 
 you must do your best, of course, to find out 
 whether or not his bones are broken. If he has suf- 
 fered a compound fracture you will be able to see 
 the bone and can be sure of the diagnosis ; but if the 
 fracture is simple you must look for these signs : 
 
 1 Pain. You will find your patient complain- 
 ing of pain in one spot. 
 
 2 Disability. He will tell you that he cannot 
 use the injured limb properly, although he may 
 be able to move it a little. 
 
 3 Deformity. Often the painful member is dif- 
 ferent in appearance from the member on the op- 
 posite side. Always compare the bad side with 
 the good one, both by sight and by touch. 
 
 4 Tenderness. Feel of the injured part. Un- 
 less there are bruises, a broken leg or arm will not 
 be tender except directly round the point of frac- 
 ture. Doctors speak of this as localized tender- 
 ness. 
 
 5 Extra Motion. Grasp the limb above and be- 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 137 
 
 low the tender place, taking great care to be gentle, 
 and watching your patient's face to see when you 
 hurt him. Try, slowly and carefully, to bend the 
 limb at this point very, very slightly, as if a joint 
 were there. If you can bend it, the bone is frac- 
 tured. You must use great care in doing this, 
 for fear of injuring the flesh. 
 
 6 Crepitus. Last, with your hands in the same 
 position, try gently to rub the broken ends of the 
 bone across each other. If you hear and feel a 
 gritting, which doctors call "crepitus" (a word 
 meaning "crackling"), you may be sure that the 
 bone is broken. 
 
 Caution 
 
 If the fracture is impacted, Nos. 5 and 6 will be 
 absent, because the broken ends will be wedged 
 forcibly together again. This happens when the 
 patient has fallen straight on an outstretched limb — 
 as, for instance, when he has landed squarely on 
 his feet, or on his outstretched arm. If you sus- 
 pect that this is the case, treat it like a simple 
 fracture. 
 
 What to Do 
 
 If you decide that the bone is fractured, the first 
 thing to do is to make your patient comfortable. 
 Lay him down and prop the broken arm or leg in 
 any comfortable position with pillows or coats or 
 
138 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 anything that is handy. If the fracture is com- 
 pound you must take steps to prevent infection; 
 pour tincture of iodine directly into the wound and 
 cover it with a sterile dressing. Bleeding, of course, 
 must be stopped. If you have no antiseptic to kill 
 the germs that are already there, at least use the 
 sterile dressing to keep new ones out. 
 
 The second thing is to watch for shock ; the treat- 
 ment is warmth and stimulation — blankets and hot 
 black coffee are best. 
 
 The third thing is to get a doctor. If one is 
 nearby, let him do all the rest; if not, you must 
 get the patient ready to go or be carried to one. 
 r- On the journey he must be comfortable, for re- 
 i peated or continued pain will exhaust him and bring 
 Jon shock as surely as sudden severe pain will. Since 
 it is movement of the broken bone that will hurt 
 him, it is plain that you must keep both. fragments 
 of the bone quiet, by applying something outside 
 of the limb to stiffen it, in place of the useless bone. 
 Whatever you use for stiffening is called a splint; 
 it may be a long, thin, flat piece of wood, such as 
 doctors use, or several small sticks laid on side by 
 side, or a broom handle, a cane, a rifle, a roUed-up 
 newspaper, a pillow, a piece of bark — anything that 
 will stiffen the dangling limb. 
 
 There is another reason for using splints. Look 
 at the figure, which was drawn from an X-ray plate, 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 139 
 
 and you will see how pointed and sharp the ends 
 of a broken bone may be, and how easily they may 
 
 ^ivncfe (rociurc ofihe \c 
 
 views 
 
 iorearm. 
 
 be pushed about, cutting and tearing the soft parts 
 iand even pricking through the skin, thus making 
 a compound fracture. A compound fracture is 
 
u 
 
 140 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 so much worse than a simple fracture that you 
 must do everything you can to prevent a simple 
 fracture from becoming compound. 
 The two reasons for using splints, then, are: 
 
 1 To prevent needless pain. 
 
 2 To prevent injury to the soft parts and the 
 possible development of a compound fracture. 
 
 The value of splints is well shown by an acci- 
 dent that happened to a wood chopper in Michi- 
 gan. . A heavy tree fell across his leg, causing a 
 simple fracture of both the bones below the knee. 
 It was winter. He was alone and knew nothing 
 about first aid. With fine courage he began to crawl 
 through the snowy brush to the nearest house, a 
 half mile away. After a long time and many stops 
 he reached the house, but his simple fracture had 
 become compound and he was in deep shock as a 
 result of the pain. He was rushed by sleigh and 
 train to a hospital and had the best of care, but 
 infection had gotten in and later he lost his leg 
 above the knee. 
 
 The Best Splint 
 
 The ideal splint is a piece of light wood a quar- 
 ter of an inch or three-eighths of an inch thick. Its 
 width should not be more than three-quarters of 
 the diameter of the limb; if it is narrower, it loses 
 in stififening power; if wider, it holds the band- 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 141 
 
 age too much away from the limb. Where the 
 diameter of the limb changes, the width of the splint 
 should change to correspond. 
 
 The length should be great enough to include 
 not only the fractured place, but also the joints 
 above and below it. Muscles from farther up and 
 down the limb are attached to the good ends of 
 the broken bone and when they contract, tend very 
 strongly to cause movement of one of the broken 
 ends. Thus, in a fracture of the lower leg you 
 must make the splints include both ankle and knee ; 
 in one of the thigh, both knee and hip must be 
 splinted, and so forth. 
 
 Padding 
 
 ^^ Another point of great importance is the pad- 
 ding of the splint. Double one foot under you and 
 sit on a hard floor for a few minutes and you will 
 become painfully aware of the bones in your ankles 
 and knees. Just so with the man who for an hour 
 or longer has to bear a piece of wood tied tightly 
 over any point where a bone comes near the sur- 
 face. Besides the pain, there is the danger of ulcer 
 formation. 
 
 The aim of padding is to fill in the hollows of 
 the outline of a limb with enough of some soft 
 substance to lift the splint away from any bony 
 
142 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 prominence and allow it to press with equal firm- 
 ness all up and down the limb. Intelligent padding 
 will make any splint comfortable. Of course the 
 padding goes between the splint and the flesh. 
 
 Although absorbent cotton makes excellent pad- 
 ding, it is seldom at hand when needed. Fairly 
 good substitutes are grass, hay, dry moss, leaves, 
 soft tissue paper, a thin pillow, and so forth. Lack- 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 143 
 
 ing all else, the patient's own clothes, put carefully- 
 back in place, make acceptable padding. 
 
 We have gotten far enough now to be able to 
 make general rules for treating fractures with 
 splints. 
 
 1 If it is compound, treat the wound at once. 
 
 2 Draw the broken limb into as natural a posi- 
 tion as you can without hurting your patient too 
 much. Do not try to "set" the bone. 
 
 3 Prepare the splints. If the wood is rough 
 wrap it with bandage or other cloth. 
 
 4 Prepare padding. 
 
 5 Apply padding and splints slowly and care- 
 fully, holding them in place at first with small 
 strips of cloth or cord, if alone, or having someone 
 else hold them; and later covering and binding on 
 the whole with bandage. This must be firm, but 
 not tight enough to cause pain or to interfere with 
 circulation. Always leave the ends of the fingers 
 or toes uncovered; if they become cold or numb 
 or blue in an hour or two, the splints are held on 
 too tightly and must be loosened. 
 
 If no bandage is handy, hold the splints in place 
 with cord or strips of cloth as follows: one tied 
 about the splints just above the point of fracture, 
 one just below, one at each end of the splints, and 
 as many more as are necessary to hold the splints 
 firmly in place. 
 
144 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 With these general principles in mind you are 
 ready to take up special treatment for the common 
 fractures. 
 
 Fracture of the Forearm (Radius and Ulna) 
 
 In the forearm — the part of, the arm between the 
 elbow and the wrist — there are two bones, the 
 radius and the ulna. When one bone only is broken, 
 the other acts as a partial splint; but frequently 
 both bones are fractured. 
 
 / 
 
 Sunq 'vn6\cahii 
 
 v 
 
 {/ QrJH 
 
 Use two splints and a sling. With the patient's 
 elbow bent at a right angle and hand on edge, so 
 that the palm faces the stomach and the thumb 
 points straight up in the air, shape one splint to 
 fit on the palm and the inner side of the arm from 
 the base of the fingers to the bend of the elbow. 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 145 
 
 Fit the other splint correspondingly on the out- 
 side from knuckles to elbow. These two splints 
 keep forearm and wrist quiet; the next step is to 
 immobilize (that is, to keep from moving) the 
 elbow by putting the forearm in a sling. Re- 
 member that slings should include hand and fingers. 
 
 Upper Arm {Humerus) 
 
 Two splints and a sling. Hold the arm as be- 
 fore; one splint goes from armpit (axilla) to el- 
 bow; the other from shoulder to elbow. Neither 
 
 Spfint is v/ounS 
 '. " "Witdstrips of cfot^L 
 
 OpliKii Spy upper awu 
 
 
 splint immobilizes either joint (elbow or shoulder). 
 A sling takes care of the elbow and partly of the 
 shoulder. A few turns of bandage round the arm 
 and body will hold the shoulder joint fairly quiet. 
 
146 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Collar Bone {Clavicle) 
 
 No splints can be used here. Hold the arm bent 
 at the elbow as before. Apply a sling and keep 
 the whole arm close to the body with circular turns 
 of bandage round arm and body (as in fracture 
 of the upper arm). The patient's shirt replaced 
 over the injured side — with the sleeve empty, of 
 course — does very well. Often a soft pad six 
 inches square and three inches thick placed high 
 up in the armpit will help to ease the pain. Hold 
 it in place by a cord run through it and tied round 
 the neck. When the elbow is brought tight to the 
 side the pad tends to throw the shoulder out, and 
 thereby to drag the broken ends of the collar bone 
 somewhat apart. 
 
 Leg ( Tibia and Fibula) 
 
 Strictly speaking, the thigh extends from the hip 
 to the knee, and the leg from the knee to the 
 ankle. 
 
 The leg, like the forearm, contains two bones, 
 which help to splint each other when only one is 
 broken. 
 
 Although the joints are larger and the muscles 
 stronger in the leg than in the forearm, so that 
 we might reasonably expect to use heavier splints, 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 147 
 
 the fact that the patient cannot walk and must be 
 carried means that his leg will be kept fairly quiet 
 merely by his position. We find, therefore, that 
 a pillow does very well as a splint for the leg. It 
 immobilizes the ankle, while the knee is immobilized 
 by keeping the patient flat on his back. Select a 
 rather thin bed pillow, pat it smooth, then crease 
 
 yLHovJsplivifirW W(?rk( 
 
 •5 
 
 it lengthwise in the middle. Let one person lift 
 the leg carefully (with one hand just above the 
 ankle and the other just below the knee), place 
 the pillow in position and lower the leg into the 
 crease. The end of the pillow should project about 
 three inches beyond the heel. Wrap the pillow 
 round the leg, making it snug and smooth, and hold 
 it in place with cord or strips of cloth previously 
 
148 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 placed on the ground under the pillow. If you 
 have safety pins, pin the edges of the pillow tightly 
 together; or, if it is too big, lap the edges and pin 
 them. 
 
 Last, push upward on the ball of the foot till 
 the sole is at a right angle with the ground and 
 hold it there by pinning the projecting edges 
 round it. 
 
 Although the pillow alone will serve in an emer- 
 gency, it is much better to reenforce it with three 
 splints placed below and on both sides, which reach 
 from knee to sole. Never put a splint on the front 
 of the leg over the shin bone. In that position it 
 is not only painful but is likely to cause an ulcer. 
 
 If you have the splints and not the pillow, pad 
 them well and apply as above. 
 
 Thigh (Femur) 
 
 In the thigh is the longest, biggest bone in the 
 body, and some of the strongest muscles. A break 
 here is a painful and serious thing, even if it is 
 a simple fracture. Both knee and hip must be 
 well immobilized. 
 
 Use three splints. One goes on the inside of the 
 limb from crotch to ankle; another, of the same 
 length, goes under the limb from buttock to ankle ; 
 and the third, on the outside, from the ankle to 
 the armpit. This one keeps the thigh from moving 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 149 
 
 outward; it should be fastened by tying it at the 
 ankle, below and above the knee, below and above 
 the point of fracture, below the hip, and round the 
 body at the waist and chest. The last two should 
 turn once round the splint to prevent it from slip- 
 ping forward or backward. 
 
 Sometimes, when you cannot get good splints, you 
 can save the situation by tying the two legs to- 
 gether so that the good one splints its injured 
 brother. 
 
 Fingers 
 
 Straighten the finger as much as possible and 
 apply a padded splint from the tip of the finger 
 to the heel of the palm. Sling. 
 
 Ribs 
 
 Fractured ribs show localized pain and tender- 
 ness, and usually great pain on breathing. Crepitus 
 may or may not be found. The fracture is seldom 
 compound, but the sharp broken end may be driven 
 inward and puncture the lung. Pleurisy and pneu- 
 monia are often the complications that follow a 
 fracture of the ribs. The only first aid treatment 
 is a tight swathe round the chest. This should 
 be of stout cloth eight or ten inches wide, and 
 pinned tight while the patient's lungs are empty. 
 
ISO FIRST, AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Lower Jaw 
 
 Here, in addition to the ordinary signs of frac- 
 ture, look for unevenness in the line of the teeth. 
 Apply the four-tailed bandage as shown in Chap- 
 ter X (p. 120). 
 
 Skull 
 
 Fracture of the skull is discussed in Chapter VI, 
 page 63. There is no first aid treatment except 
 quiet and warmth. Get a doctor quickly; delay is 
 dangerous. 
 
 DISLOCATIONS 
 
 A dislocation is an injury at a joint in which the 
 two bones are pulled or pushed apart and remain 
 out of place. It may be simple or compound, like 
 a fracture. The cause is a violent twist or shove 
 on a bone, such as may occur in slipping or fall- 
 ing against something, kicking, throwing a ball, 
 and so forth. 
 
 Diagnosis 
 
 1 The surest sign of dislocation is dis=location ; 
 something about the joint looks strange — out of 
 place — when you compare it with the correspond- 
 ing joint of the other limb. Also, it feels dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 2 Of course, if one of the two bones at the 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 151 
 
 joint is out of place the joint cannot do its work 
 well; that is, you will not be able to move the joint 
 as you should. There is lack of proper motion. 
 
 Remember that in fractures motion is usually 
 present where there should be none; while in dis- 
 locations proper motion is reduced. 
 
 3 Pain is not localized in one spot, as in frac- 
 tures, but is general- — all round the joint. 
 
 4 There is no real crepitus. Sometimes a soft 
 rubbing can be felt in a dislocation; but there is 
 none of the sharp, crackling sensation that you get 
 when feeling a fracture. 
 
 In addition, swelling generally sets in sooner and 
 is greater than in the case of a fracture. 
 
 Sometimes you cannot decide between a dislo- 
 cation and a fracture, and sometimes the patient 
 may have both or neither. When in doubt, treat 
 like a fracture. 
 
 Treatment 
 
 Make your patient comfortable. If the disloca- 
 tion is compound (which rarely happens), treat the 
 wound at once to prevent infection. Put the joint 
 into the most comfortable position for your pa- 
 tient and prevent swelling as far as you can by 
 applying hot or very cold cloths continually over 
 the joint. Get a doctor or get your patient to 
 one. 
 
IS2 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Except in the cases mentioned below, and then 
 only in an emergency, never try to replace the bone. 
 Joints are delicate things, very necessary to our 
 comfort and easily injured. Moreover, the liga- 
 ments about the joint have been injured and torn 
 by the dislocation; it is important that the bones 
 be replaced in such a way as not to injure them 
 further. Only a good doctor knows how joints 
 are built and how best to reduce a dislocation. 
 
 When You May Try 
 
 There are three cases in which you are justified 
 in trying to reduce a dislocation — finger, lower jaw 
 and shoulder; but only when it will be impossible 
 to get a doctor for eight hours or more. The less 
 you bother with dislocations, after you have made 
 your man comfortable, the better first aider you 
 will be. 
 
 Fingers 
 
 What we now say applies only to the two end 
 joints of the fingers and to the one end joint of 
 the thumb. Dislocations of the knuckles and of 
 the second thumb joint had better be left to the 
 doctor. 
 
 Dislocations of the finger and thumb joints are 
 common, especially in baseball. Pull out on the 
 injured finger, keeping the dislocated bone bent 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 153 
 
 just as it is until it snaps; then straighten it to its 
 usual position and relax the pull. Apply a finger 
 splint and ha!ve the patient keep it on for several 
 days. 
 
 Lower Jaw 
 
 Sometimes the jaw is dislocated on one or both 
 sides by nothing more strenuous than a wide yawn 
 or bite; laughing and vomiting are not unusual 
 causes. 
 
 Cover both thumbs with thick cloth and, placing 
 them on the patient's back teeth, with the fingers 
 grasping the jaw outside, press down and back 
 with a strong, steady movement. Just before the 
 jaw slips back, slide your thumbs ofif from between 
 the jaws, for the teeth come together smartly. For 
 the same reason tell your patient to keep his 
 tongue in. 
 
 Shoulder 
 
 This is perhaps the commonest of all dislocations. 
 There are several different varieties, named accord- 
 ing to the position of the arm bone after it has 
 slipped out of its socket. Reduction is not always 
 easy, even for a doctor ; sometimes the patient must 
 be etherized, not on account of the pain, but to re- 
 lax the spasm of the injured muscles round the 
 joint. For these reasons, do not try to reduce the 
 dislocation except when no other help is near. 
 
154 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 If forced to it, proceed thus: stand on the in- 
 jured side of the patient and grasp wrist and elbow 
 of the dislocated arm. Hold the elbow somewhat 
 away from the body, and without moving it force 
 the wrist backward slowly with a firm pressure 
 
 yjiocmv Jliemoo 
 
 until it is nearly on a level with the shoulder. There 
 will be resistance to this movement, overcome slowly 
 by a long, steady, gentle pressure. This move- 
 ment should take two to five minutes.^ Next, with 
 the wrist still held back, bring the elbow somewhat 
 'Cotton, "Dislocations and Joint-Fractures." 
 
FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS 155 
 
 across the chest. Third, holding the elbow in its 
 new position, and pushing a little upward on it, 
 swing the wrist across to the opposite shoulder. 
 
 This is called the Kocher method and is far bet- 
 ter than the old way of putting your heel in the 
 patient's armpit and hauling on his arm. 
 
 If you succeed in reducing the dislocation, hold 
 the arm to the side with sling and bandages and 
 keep up hot or cold applications for several hours. 
 
 If you fail, after two or three trials, stop; for you 
 may injure the joint severely by repeated trials. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 DROWNING AND ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION 
 
 When the Beaver and the Blazing Arrow patrols 
 in charge of Scoutmaster Nolan set out for their 
 three-day camping trip at Archer Lake last October 
 no one of course had any idea of the startling acci- 
 dent that- was to occur before their first camp fires 
 were lighted. At four o'clock the two patrols ar- 
 rived at Pine Point, which juts out into the clear 
 waters of Archer Lake, and. as soon as the tents 
 were pitched everyone, including the scoutmaster, 
 stripped for a swim. 
 
 The day had been unusually warm for October 
 and the cool water was refreshing. Peter D'Arcy, 
 patrol leader of the Beavers, immediately swam 
 out beyond the others ; he was a hundred feet from 
 the shore when suddenly he threw up his arms 
 and shouted for help. Raymond Hutton, who was 
 nearest, swam to the rescue, although he was con- 
 siderably smaller than Peter. 
 
 To the scouts on shore and to those in the water 
 who had heard the cry for help and had seen Ray- 
 mond swim to give aid, it seemed that the two 
 
 156 
 
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION 157 
 
 went out of sight at the instant that the smaller 
 boy fearlessly reached out his hand to the larger. 
 There was a brief struggle and the water closed 
 over their heads. They did not come up. 
 
 Scoutmaster Nolan was already swimming to- 
 ward the spot with hasty overhand strokes, but 
 he turned his head long enough to shout to the 
 boys on shore to run for a boat that they had seen 
 at a landing on the other side of the point. Then 
 he swam on and presently dived below the sur- 
 face. A few seconds later he came up — empty- 
 handed. Twice more he dived without result and 
 by this time two of the Blazing Arrows were row- 
 ing hastily toward him in the little white boat that 
 they had found at the landing. As they came along- 
 side, the scoutmaster seized the stern, climbed 
 aboard and immediately dived. Three times he 
 did the same thing while the two boys in the boat 
 watched white-faced and silent. The third time 
 he came to the surface slowly — dragging some- 
 thing. As soon as his head rose above water he 
 seized the gunwale of the boat and the scouts saw 
 that he was holding with the other hand to the two 
 boys who had sunk. D'Arcy's arms were clutched 
 tightly round Hutton's neck and both were ap- 
 parently lifeless. 
 
 A few seconds later the boat had touched shore 
 and Scoutmaster Nolan was giving sharp orders. 
 
158 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 "All of you Beavers get to work building a fire 
 and warming some blankets; Grey (turning to his 
 senior patrol leader), you take Hutton and do ex- 
 actly what I do to D'Arcy. Sargent, you and Do- 
 herty take that boat and row across to the farm- 
 house, over on the other shore, telephone for a doc- 
 tor and tell him to bring a pulmotor from Hicks- 
 ville if he can get one." 
 
 While the scoutmaster was speaking he had 
 rapidly felt with his fingers in DArcy's mouth to 
 make sure that there was nothing obstructing the 
 passage to his throat and that his tongue was drawn 
 forward. Grey followed his example with Hut- 
 ton. Next they both lifted the unconscious boys 
 by the hips and for several seconds held them in 
 that position with heads hanging down close to 
 the ground so that the water in their throat and 
 ■ lungs could run out. Once or twice Mr. Nolan 
 gave D'Arcy a vigorous shake and Grey did the 
 same with Hutton. 
 
 "Quick now," said the scoutmaster, "put him, 
 stomach down, on the sand — Schaefer method. 
 Two coats folded" (this to some of the Blazing 
 Arrows who were standing and whispering together 
 as they watched). 
 
 Almost before he had the words out of his mouth 
 two coats were thrust forward and the scoutmaster 
 and Grey adjusted them under the chests of the 
 
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION 159 
 
 two unconscious scouts so that their faces fell 
 lightly forward and their mouths and noses were 
 free for breathing. Then the scoutmaster stretched 
 out D'Arcy's arms in front of his head and once 
 more made sure that the boy's tongue was pulled 
 forward. 
 
 All that had taken less than a minute, for Mr. 
 Nolan and Grey were working with all the speed 
 
 Uyw. tPioiASOKO ana one— ' 
 
 in their power. Now they both kneeled straddling 
 their patients' thighs and, placing their wide-spread 
 hands so that the thumbs nearly met on either side 
 of the backbones and the little fingers lay along the 
 lower ribs of the unconscious boys, began to exert 
 pressure. 
 
 "A thousand and one, a thousand and two, a 
 thousand and three, a thousand and four," counted 
 Mr. Nolan. At his first words he was sitting back 
 against the calves of D'Arcy's legs with his hands 
 resting lightly on the boy's lower ribs; but as he 
 
i6o 
 
 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 began to count he rose slowly on his knees and 
 pressed more and more strongly with his hands. 
 As he said "a thousand and two" he was exerting 
 full pressure; as he said "a thousand and three" 
 he was relaxing the pressure and settling back to 
 the sitting position; at "a thousand and four" he 
 was back again in his starting position with his 
 hands resting lightly on D'Arcy's lower ribs. Im- 
 
 Ommousantfayui h/io 
 
 H ^^,*^,^ 
 
 mediately he repeated the movement, again count- 
 ing "a thousand and one, a thousand and two" and 
 so on. Meanwhile Grey was working in the same 
 manner over Hutton. Each complete movement 
 took about four seconds and the counting was for 
 the purpose of regulating the artificial breathing to 
 fifteen respirations a minute-^the normal rate in 
 health. Presently three of the Beavers ran up 
 with warm blankets and it took only a few seconds 
 to adjust them under and round the two boys. 
 "A couple of you Beavers get some towels and 
 
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION i6i 
 
 begin to rub their legs and arms toward the heart, 
 while Grey and I are working," ordered Mr. Nolan, 
 and he saw with satisfaction that the Beavers car- 
 ried out his command efficiently and without get- 
 ting in the way. Steadily he went on with his 
 artificial respiration and once when he glanced at 
 Grey and caught a despairing look on the patrol 
 leader's face he said, "Keep it up ! We'll win." 
 
 Suddenly one of the Blazing Arrows gave a shout 
 and pointed at D'Arcy, "He moved his eyes," he 
 cried. 
 
 Scoutmaster Nolan gave a quick glance at 
 D'Arcy's face and went on with his work. The boy 
 was beginning to breathe and presently he moved 
 one of his hands, turned his head a little and spoke. 
 What he said made everyone laugh, though there 
 was a lump in every throat. 
 
 "You're breaking my slats ! Let me up !" 
 
 At that Scoutmaster Nolan leaped over to Grey. 
 "I'll take Hutton," he said. "You get out the first 
 aid kit and give D'Arcy a dose of aromatic spirits 
 of ammonia — half a teaspoonful in some water. 
 Then keep him in the blankets close to the fire 
 where he'll be warm." 
 
 When Grey found time to look up from tending 
 D'Arcy he saw that Hutton was moving his feet. 
 A few moments later the scoutmaster was giving 
 Hutton a stimulant too. The boy was still dazed 
 
1 62 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 and he kept repeating as he looked round at the 
 smiling faces of his Beaver and Blazing Arrow 
 friends: "He wouldn't let go of my neck. He 
 wouldn't let go of my neck." 
 
 Quarter of an hour later a doctor rowed across 
 to the point with the two Blazing Arrows who had 
 gone to the farmhouse; but he found nothing to 
 do. Button and D'Arcy were still feeling weak, 
 but they both were smiling cheerfully and lying in 
 comfort near the fire. 
 
 When the doctor left he shook hands with Scout- 
 master Nolan and said, "Thanks to you, those boys 
 will be all right. The bigger lad's stomach seems 
 to be a little upset. That's natural, seeing that he 
 had a cramp. I've left some Jamaica ginger: give 
 him one teaspoonful tonight in some hot water. A 
 good sleep tonight will make them both O. K." 
 
 We have described this accident in detail because 
 of the fact that the scoutmaster and the boys took 
 exactly the right method and did not "lose their 
 heads." 
 
 There are a few points that need special em- 
 phasis. As soon as you get the patient to shore 
 always try to rid his throat and lungs of what water 
 there is in them by lifting him with your hands 
 under his hips; and always take pains to see that 
 his tongue is pulled forward. Sometimes a drown- 
 
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION 163 
 
 ing person "swallows his tongue" and ob- 
 structs his breathing passages. You could 
 work over him for hours without effect if you 
 left him in that condition. Just that little detail 
 of pulling forward the tongue might mean the 
 difference between life and death. In giving a 
 scout his first-class examination in artificial respira- 
 tion the court-of -honor man ought to mark him 
 zero if he does not remember the tongue. Scout- 
 master Nolan used the Schaefer or prone pressure 
 method rather than the Sylvester method because 
 on the whole it has proved to be the more satisfac- 
 tory; one of the points in its favor is that in the 
 face-downward position the tongue naturally lies 
 forward. Should it seem to be clogged in the 
 patient's throat tie a handkerchief or a shoe-string 
 round it and fasten it so that it cannot be drawn 
 back. 
 
 If the unconscious person is partly or wholly 
 clothed, get someone to loosen or remove all tight 
 clothing about the neck, chest and waist while you 
 continue the artificial respiration. 
 
 Above all things do not give up trying because 
 there seems to be no life in your patient. An hour, 
 or even two hours, is not too long to continue the 
 artificial respiration, for while a spark of life lingers 
 there is a chance to kindle it into health. 
 
 One of the common mistakes in artificial respira- 
 
1 64 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 tion is to apply pressure too rapidly. Normally 
 you breathe about fifteen times a minute — once 
 every four seconds. Counting "a thousand and 
 one, a thousand and two, a thousand and three, a 
 thousand and four" will help you to regulate the 
 pressure, but it is a good plan to time yourself with 
 the second hand of a watch to make sure that you 
 are working at the correct rate. 
 
 One Criticism 
 
 Only one thing about the accident at Archer 
 Lake can be criticized — Raymond Mutton's method 
 of going to the rescue of his friend. He swam 
 straight toward him and stretched out his hand 
 without stopping to realize that D'Arcy, half crazed 
 with the fear of drowning, would seize him in a 
 frantic grasp. Always approach a drowning person 
 cautiously and, if possible, from behind, so that 
 you can get a firm grip upon him and prevent him 
 from seizing you. Should he succeed in grasping 
 you, do not. hesitate to strike him in the face or to 
 double up and thrust him away with a vigorous 
 push of your feet ; but do not hit him with anything 
 harder than your fist. 
 
 ELECTRIC SHOCK AND GAS ASPHYXIATION 
 In serious electric shock a person often ceases 
 to breathe. The first-aid treatment is to begin 
 
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION 165 
 
 artificial respiration as soon as you have removed 
 the patient from contact with the current. The im- 
 portance of this is emphasized in a letter from an in- 
 surance company. The writer says : "The physi- 
 cian that was called gave the man up without any 
 attempt at resuscitation. I still think, from what 
 those who were there tell me, that a short time with 
 the prone-pressure method would have brought 
 him around." 
 
 The United States Department of the Interior 
 gives some valuable advice about electric shock in 
 a circular entitled "First Aid Instructions for 
 Miners" : 
 
 The symptoms of electric shock are: Sudden loss of 
 consciousness; absence of respiration, or, if present, very 
 light and may not be observable; very weak pulse; and 
 burns at point of contact. Always rescue a sufferer as 
 quickly as possible, being careful not to get in contact 
 with the live wire. Lose no time in looking for a switch 
 for turning off the current; if there is one near at hand 
 open at once. If there is a drill, mine auger, or any piece 
 of wire at hand throw it across the trolley wire and rail 
 at once. By so doing the circuit breaker in the power 
 house will be thrown out and the current cut off. Such 
 action may cause injury to the other working parts of 
 the mine, but when a human life is at stake all the wires 
 should be cut if necessary. Life should come first and 
 the mine afterwards. If no wire or drill long enough 
 to reach from the wire to the rail is at hand, you may 
 proceed to remove the victim from the current, but 
 
1 66 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 first get a dry board, piece of wood, or paper and put it 
 under your feet, and protect the hand you use with 
 your cap, coat or any dry non-conducting material, so as 
 not to make a circuit. If possible use one hand only, 
 placing the other behind you. If you do use both hands 
 to remove the man from the ground, make sure that both 
 your hands and your feet are well insulated so that you 
 will not be caught in the same contact as your patient. 
 Another way is to take your belt or handkerchief or a 
 piece of rope and loop it over the patient's feet if he is 
 lying on the wire, and thus pull him off. If an ax is 
 near at hand use it to cut the wire, but first make sure 
 that the handle is dry or wrap it with a coat or cloth. 
 
 Gas Asphyxiation 
 
 In gas asphyxiation you can give no better treat- 
 ment than by getting the patient into fresh air and 
 applying the Schaefer method of artificial respira- 
 tion. Always remember to make sure that the 
 person's mouth is free from foreign substances and 
 that his tongue is where it belongs. And of course 
 you will send for a doctor. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Drowning 
 
 As soon as you get the patient out of water, re- 
 move from his mouth any foreign matter and pjill 
 his tongue forward. Next lift him by the hips and 
 
ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION 167 
 
 hold him so till all the water has run from his throat 
 and lungs. Send for a doctor. Then lay him face 
 downward with a coat under his chest so that his 
 nose and mouth are free to the air. Start arti- 
 ficial respiration at once. While you work have 
 someone loosen or remove clothing at neck, waist 
 and chest, and rub the linibs toward the heart. As 
 soon as the patient revives give a stimulant, and 
 keep him warm and quiet. 
 
 Electric Shock 
 
 Remove patient from wires with non-conductors. 
 Send for a doctor. Apply artificial respiration. 
 Stimulate when conscious. 
 
 Gas Asphyxiation 
 
 Remove patient to fresh air. Send for a doctor. 
 Apply artificial respiration. Stimulate when con- 
 scious. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MINOR EMERGENCIES 
 
 I SMALL WOUNDS 
 
 When you think of a scratch or a small cut, 
 think of an antiseptic and a clean dry dressing. 
 For an antiseptic choose tincture of iodine or 70 
 per cent grain alcohol. For a dressing use sterile 
 gauze if you have it ; or a pad of several thicknesses 
 of clean cotton cloth an inch larger than the wound 
 all round and held on with bandage or narrow strips 
 of adhesive tape ("surgeons' plaster") ; or a ring 
 of collodion round the edge (the so-called "co- 
 coon"), leaving the center of the dressing un- 
 sealed. 
 
 That treatment gives the best results. Certainly 
 it is far better than court plaster alone, or adhesive 
 tape, or collodion, for these two reasons: 
 
 First, a break in the skin opens the way for in- 
 fection; that is, opens the way through which bac- 
 teria (germs) can get into the body. Germs, we 
 know, particularly the kinds that cause infection 
 of a wound, are ever3rwhere, on everything, so that 
 
 168 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 169 
 
 whatever we scratch or cut ourselves with prob- 
 ably leaves many in the wound; to kill them we 
 must use an antiseptic (see Chapter VII). Collo- 
 dion will not do, for it has only a very weak anti- 
 septic action; adhesive tape has none at all and 
 may easily carry germs, and court plaster, having 
 been licked, is crowded with them. 
 
 Second, whenever flesh is injured, blood and a 
 watery fluid called serum appear in the wound and 
 furnish splendid soil for the growth of bacteria. 
 Your treatment should aim, therefore, to keep the 
 wound as dry as possible; that is, the dressing 
 should be of gauze or cloth sterilized or dipped in 
 alcohol before applying and should be changed as 
 often as necessary. Court plaster, adhesive plaster 
 and ' collodion all seal the wound, keep these fluids 
 in and so give infection, if present, a fine chance 
 to develop. 
 
 An antiseptic and a clean absorbent dressing, 
 then, make the best treatment for small wounds. 
 
 2 PUNCTURED WOUNDS 
 
 By this we mean small, deep wounds, such as 
 those made by a nail. It is not the rust on the nail 
 that we fear, for iron is often given as medicine: 
 in fact, 
 
 Nails and bolts when in solution 
 Make an iron constitution. 
 
I70 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 It is the bacteria which are carried into the wound 
 on the dirty nail that make the trouble, particularly 
 the germ of lockjaw. This bacterium lives in all 
 soils, but especially in those of a sandy nature, and, 
 strange to tell, cannot grow in the open air. It 
 must have a dark corner, where there is no oxygen. 
 The bottom of a punctured wound is an agreeable 
 place for a lockjaw germ to lodge, for the opening 
 of the wound soon becomes plugged with clotted 
 blood and serum, keeping out the air with its 
 oxygen. 
 
 It is the same with a bullet wound. Even if no 
 vital part is hit the danger of infection remains. 
 Lockjaw, or tetanus, as it is properly called, fre- 
 quently follows Fourth of July accidents also, not 
 because the bacterium has anything particular to do 
 with firearms, but because these accidents are likely 
 to blow small pieces of wadding or powder deep into 
 the flesh, making punctured wounds. These small 
 foreign bodies carry with them into the flesh any 
 bacteria that may be lodged on the skin ; if the germ 
 of tetanus is there, it is pushed into a place ideal for 
 its growth. It is easy to understand, then, that any 
 punctured wound should be seen at once by a doctor 
 and thoroughly cleaned. He will probably inject 
 tetanus antitoxin, also, to prevent the development 
 of lockjaw. 
 
 In the case of a punctured wound from a nail or 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 171 
 
 a bullet your treatment is to make the wound bleed 
 freely by squeezing at its sides, taking care not to 
 touch it; then to cover it with a sterile compress. 
 If you have iodine or alcohol at hand, pull the 
 wound widely apart and pour the antiseptic in freely 
 before applying the compress. 
 
 Because oxygen in the wound will tend to keep 
 the tetanus bacteria from growing, peroxide of hy- 
 dtogen is useful as an antiseptic in this one class 
 of wounds. 
 
 When the wound is caused by a powder explos- 
 ion, cover it with a sterile dressing and go to a doc- 
 tor at once. 
 
 3 SPLINTERS 
 
 Splinters frequently go deep into the flesh and 
 almost always carry infection with them. Serious 
 trouble is likely to follow if the splinter is not re- 
 moved. 
 
 Cover a needle with alcohol in a saucer for five 
 minutes or heat it red hot with a match (the soot 
 will not bother you). With this open up the path 
 of the splinter by picking the skin away; if the 
 invader lies near the surface begin to pick it out 
 at the end that went in first, in order not to push 
 it farther in. When the splinter's trench is un^ 
 covered, lift or pull it out and sterilize the wound 
 with an antiseptic (see Chapter VII). 
 
172 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 4 BOILS 
 
 Boils are small infections that begin on the sur- 
 face of the skin and work down along a hair or 
 a sweat gland. Our friend Staphy (see Chapter 
 VII) is the burglar who thus jimmies his way into 
 our house. After a boil is well started there is no 
 home remedy to stop it. Poultices are bad, be- 
 cause they soften the surrounding skin and tend 
 to spread the infection. Your chief object should 
 be to prevent the formation of new boils. Be very 
 careful not to let anything that has touched the boil 
 touch any other part of your skin — whether it be 
 your finger or part of your clothes or the dressing. 
 
 As soon as you find a boil developing wipe the 
 surrounding skin thoroughly with 70 per cent alco- 
 hol, beginning with a wide circle round the boil 
 and coming slowly in circles to the center, where 
 the infection is. Wipe the boil itself last, throw 
 the cloth away, and from that time on, till the boil 
 has finished discharging, keep it covered with a 
 light dressing changed every day or twice a day. 
 In that way you have a good chance of stopping 
 the spread of the boils. 
 
 Occasionally a common needle dipped in strong 
 carbolic acid and pushed for a quarter of an inch 
 into the middle of a beginning boil will nip it in 
 the bud. 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 173 
 
 S BLISTERS 
 
 Blisters are the result of continued irritation of 
 the skin. Shoes cause them both when tight 
 enough to "bind" and when loose enough to 
 "shuck." 
 
 On the hike, take pains to wash your feet at least 
 once a day; use warm water and soap, rinse and 
 wipe thoroughly dry. Heavy woolen socks are 
 best to tramp in; take with you one or two extra 
 pairs and give your feet clean socks to work in. 
 If, even then, you see blisters coming, try soaping 
 the inside of your socks. 
 
 When the blister has developed treat it by empty- 
 ing it of its fluid (see figure on page 87) and by 
 protecting it from further friction by a bandage. 
 Keep it from infection; an infected blister is a 
 poor possession. 
 
 6 CONSTIPATION 
 
 When the bowels fail to work regularly every 
 day harmful substances are retained in the body 
 and absorbed. The result is a tired, uneasy feeling, 
 often a headache, perhaps nausea and vomiting, 
 and sometimes severe pains in the abdomen. 
 
 Avoid medicine as long as possible. Be regular. 
 Select a time to which you can stick every day ; and 
 then stick to it. Plenty of water is needed ; eight 
 
174 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 to ten glasses a day, including all liquids, is not too 
 much. 
 
 Select your diet carefully. Avoid too much meat, 
 butter, fried food, pickles and highly seasoned food, 
 coffee, tea and candy. Eat the green vegetables 
 (lettuce, spinach — "greens" of any kind — water- 
 cress, celery, cucumbers, melons), rye, graham, 
 brown or whole wheat bread, stewed prunes and 
 the acid fruits, such as oranges, lemons, grapefruit, 
 peaches, pears and grapes. 
 
 If medicine becomes necessary, choose Epsoin 
 salts (two to four level teaspoonfuls in a full glass 
 of water) for a quick purge. Fluid extract of 
 cascara (one teaspoonful; or 54 teaspoonful every 
 hour for four hours) has a slower, gentler effect. 
 
 7 DIARRHEA 
 
 Diarrhea may be caused by two classes of condi- 
 tions. 
 
 In the first instance it is due to some irritating 
 food or medicine you have taken. It may be slight 
 — merely a few extra movements for a day or two, 
 without any general ill feeling; or it may be severe 
 and go with headache, nausea, vomiting, more or 
 less prostration and crampy pain in the abdomen. 
 This type of diarrhea is oftenest the result of eat- 
 ing spoiled food or food that contains harmful 
 substances. (See Chapter IX, page 98.) Here it 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 175 
 
 is plain that, there is something in the intestines that 
 IS irritating; the body is trying to rid itself of the 
 poison by vomiting and by diarrhea. You must 
 help. A dose of salts is the quickest acting purge; 
 it should be given at once and repeated in three 
 hours if necessary. That will increase the diar- 
 rhea, of course, but in this case that is what you 
 want. 
 
 On the other hand, diarrhea may be part of a real 
 disease, such as dysentery, typhoid fever or the 
 first stages of measles, scarlet fever or diphtheria. 
 Here it either lasts for several days, with fever and 
 a general ill feeling, or else is followed quickly 
 (usually one day) by a rash on the body, sore throat 
 and so forth. The onset is rather slow; and you 
 feel as if the trouble were spread throughout your 
 whole body. 
 
 In this case the treatment is not to make the 
 bowels move still oftener, but to get a doctor quickly 
 to find out what the real cause of the diarrhea 
 is. 
 
 Here it is natural to speak of 
 
 8 STOMACHACHE 
 
 If the pain is near the edge of the ribs in the 
 midline and does not go below the navel, it is prob- 
 ably due to indigestion, especially if you have eaten 
 a great deal or have eaten something hard to digest, 
 
176 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 like peanuts, bananas or green apples. First try 
 a hot drink, such" as hot peppermint water or half 
 a cup of hot water containing a teaspoonful of bak- 
 ing soda. A hot water bag laid on the stomach will 
 help. 
 
 If none of these things relieve the pain, cause 
 vomiting as described in Chapter IX and follow 
 it with a dose of salts. 
 
 If the pain is below the navel, vomiting will do 
 little good, for the trouble is not in the stomach, 
 but in the intestines. Use a hot water bag. A 
 good movement of the bowels will probably give 
 relief. If the pain continues for several hours, get 
 a doctor; remember that there is a chance of ap- 
 pendicitis and that discretion is the better part of 
 valor. 
 
 9 HEADACHE 
 
 Constipation and eye strain are the commonest 
 of many causes of headache. Rest, a hot bath, and 
 an ice cap or cold cloths to the head will usually 
 help. If the foregoing causes are removed and the 
 headache continues for several days, be examined 
 by a doctor. 
 
 At any rate, avoid the use of headache powders. 
 They deaden the pain, but they do not remove the 
 cause; and they frequently have severe, even seri- 
 ous, after-efifects. 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 177 
 
 10 TOOTHACHE 
 
 The poet must have thought of this when he 
 wrote of an "aching void," for a cavity is usually- 
 found in the offending tooth. Clean this gently 
 with a swab of absorbent cotten twisted on the end 
 of a toothpick; then roll a tiny ball of cotton, wet 
 it with oil of cloves, squeeze it dry, and plug the 
 cavity with it. If you have a dentist examine your 
 teeth twice a year and fill all of the tiny cavities as 
 they appear, you will have little trouble with tooth- 
 ache. 
 
 II EARACHE 
 
 Put two or three drops of warm sweet oil in 
 the ear. Or put the glass part of a medicine dropper 
 on the tube of a fountain syringe; fill the bag with 
 water at about 100° Fahrenheit, and hang it so 
 that the bottom of the bag will be level with the 
 ear. Direct the stream of water into the ear but 
 be careful not to put the glass tip into the 
 canal. 
 
 Never put anything hard into the ear, such as a 
 toothpick, hairpin or "ear spoon." 
 
 Often a hot water bottle is enough to stop the 
 ache. Sometimes a small piece of cotton wet with 
 grain alcohol and placed on the water bottle where 
 the ear will lie over it will help. 
 
 If the earache remains after you have tried these 
 
178 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 things, see a doctor at once. Many earaches are 
 due to infections of the middle ear, which lies deep 
 in, behind the drum, and is close to the brain. 
 Trouble here that is not looked after may have such 
 serious consequences as mastoiditis, brain abscess 
 and meningitis. Only a doctor, who can squint into 
 your ear with his shiny instruments, can tell you 
 whether the trouble is due to wax or to something 
 more serious. 
 
 12 NOSEBLEED 
 
 A nosebleed is like a lazy boy on a hike; it will 
 probably stop in a few minutes if left alone. If it 
 does not, try the old standbys : a roll of paper held 
 tightly under the upper lip — a key or anything cold 
 to the back of the neck ; snufifing very cold water up 
 the nose. Avoid blowing or picking the nose. Sit 
 or lie down and keep quiet. 
 
 The two "bleeding points" are on either side of 
 the middle partition of the nose about as far in as 
 the little finger will reach. Sometimes you can 
 stop the hemorrhage (remember that any bleeding 
 is a hemorrhage) in this way: cover your little 
 finger with a clean cloth; put it into the nostril as 
 far as it will go and press gently and steadily 
 against the septum (the partition in the middle of 
 the nose) ; apply the pressure for five to ten min-- 
 utes; withdraw the finger very slowly and gently 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 179 
 
 in order not to remove any clots that may have 
 formed. 
 
 13 FOREIGN BODY IN EYE 
 
 In your own eye: 
 
 Do not rub your eye. Blow your nose hard sev- 
 eral times. Lift the upper lid away from the eye- 
 ball, pull it down and let go. If these methods 
 fail, get help. 
 
 Ovcfsiovu ^^ sLr hoidina tae lippec lid 
 
 o^iUz. upper ^^ 
 
 In the other fellow's eye: 
 
 In examining an eye, make all your movements 
 slowly. If you move quickly near the eye, your 
 patient will blink and squirm. 
 
 Place your thumb on the lower lid and pull it 
 down until you can see the whole inner side of it. 
 
 To see the under side of the upper lid is some- 
 what more difificult, because in the lower part of the 
 upper lid there is a layer of stiff tissue (the tarsus) 
 which helps the lid to lie flat against the eyeball. 
 This layer extends from the lower edge of the lid 
 upward about a quarter of an inch; its upper edge 
 
i8o FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 is often marked by a slight wrinkle in the lid. Be- 
 cause of this layer the lid cannot be rolled but must 
 be turned up; also, when properly turned up it 
 stays there by itself until the patient winks hard or 
 until you push it down again. 
 
 To turn the lid up it is only necessary to place 
 a toothpick, a thin match, or the point (blunt) of 
 a pencil along the upper edge of the stiffening layer, 
 about where the wrinkle is in the lid, and press 
 gently in and down while with the other hand you 
 grasp the eyelashes and pull them outward and up- 
 ward. Meanwhile have the patient look down and 
 keep his eyes open. Hold the lid in its new posi- 
 tion with your finger on its edge and slide the tooth- 
 pick out. The whole movement should be painless. 
 
 You may stand in front of the patient while you 
 are doing this, but the better way is to have him 
 sit down and stand behind him with his head rest- 
 ing firmly against your abdomen. 
 
 Now when your patient turns his eye down you 
 can see the whole upper part of the ball as well as 
 the upper lid. 
 
 When you have located the foreign body, try 
 to remove it by touching it with a bit of clean cloth 
 twisted into a point and softened with water— not 
 with saliva. Sometimes the bit of foreign matter 
 will stick to the eyeball. If it is embedded and re- 
 fuses to be wiped away, see a doctor at once. 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES i8i 
 
 14 SPRAINS 
 
 A sprain is an injury to the ligament and tendons 
 round a joint. It is usually not a serious thing, 
 although in a really bad sprain the ligaments may 
 be so torn that the action of the joint is always 
 thereafter imperfect. 
 
 Considerable swelling and pain always follow a 
 sprain. The treatment is a hot soak with massage, 
 or hot or cold cloths laid over the joint, changing 
 them as often as necessary to keep the temperature 
 right. Sometimes alternate heat and cold are ad- 
 vised. Repeat this treatment three times a day, 
 twenty to thirty minutes each time. 
 
 Since there is an injury to the joint, it is foolish 
 to think that using it will hehp to make it well. On 
 the contrary, rest is needed. If it is a wrist, elbow 
 or shoulder, keep the arm in a sling; a light splint 
 on the wrist is comfortable. If it is the ankle and 
 you are at home, use a hot soak and the figure of 
 eight bandage (see figure on page no). If you are 
 in camp, the cold brook will do nearly as well as 
 the hot soak. If you are alone in the woods and 
 must hobble some distance, do not take your shoe 
 off, for the ankle and foot are likely to swell so much 
 and so quickly that you will not be able to put it on 
 again. Cut a stick for a cane, spare the injured 
 foot all you can, and put ofif treatment till later. 
 
1 82 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 IS STRAINS 
 
 Sometimes, as when you suddenly lift a heavy 
 weight, a muscle is stretched so hard that some of 
 its tiny fibers are actually pulled apart. This is a 
 strain. Treatment is rest, rubbing and hot appli- 
 cations. 
 
 i6 MUSCLE CRAMP 
 
 This occurs in muscles that have been used so 
 long or so hard that they are tired out. They con- 
 tract, by themselves, into hard knots, and are ex- 
 tremely painful. Cramp is commonest in the legs. 
 The treatment is rest and massage. 
 
 Muscle cramp is very different from the crampy 
 pains in the abdomen that occur in indigestion, con- 
 stipation, diarrhea and so forth. 
 
 17 HICCOUGH 
 
 Take a drink of cold water, holding it in your 
 mouth for a minute or two before swallowing it. 
 Or hold your breath as long as you can. While 
 you hold it press with both hands in and up under 
 your ribs. 
 
 18 POISON IVY 
 
 Poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron) is a climbing 
 vine or small shrub commonly seen along roadsides. 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 183 
 
 Its leaves are shiny and in groups of three, a char- 
 acteristic that distinguishes it from woodbine or 
 Virginia creeper, the leaves of which are grouped 
 in fives. 
 
 C-iean,fuu\4is, 
 
 The irritating substance in poison ivy is a heavy 
 oil that evaporates very slowly and may easily be 
 spread by fingers or clothes. So long as it is in 
 contact with the skin it causes itching, redness and 
 an eruption; the condition cannot be cured until 
 the oil is removed. To do this scrub the irritated 
 place when it first itches with strong soapsuds and 
 a small cloth, beginning in a wide circle and scrub- 
 bing slowly in toward the center. That is to avoid 
 spreading the oil. Rinse with warm water in the 
 
1 84 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 same way and dry the skin. Repeat the same process 
 several times with grain alcohol, for this will dis- 
 solve what oil is left. 
 
 Now you are safe in believing that you have re- 
 moved the cause. The next step is to soothe the 
 skin, using Vaseline, plain or carbolized; cocoa but- 
 ter, cold cream, and so forth ; but best of all is the 
 so-called "white" wash, which any druggist will 
 make up for you. This is : 
 
 Carbolic acid J^ dram 
 
 Zinc oxide Yi ouhce 
 
 Lime water 4 ounces 
 
 Shake well and sop it on with cotton or a small 
 sponge. It soon dries, leaving a coating of white 
 powder. Do this three or four times in succession 
 and repeat every hour. If the skin becomes too 
 dry, apply some simple ointment, such as those 
 above. 
 
 Other plants — ^nettle, rue, poison sumac or dog- 
 wood, and especially the common primrose — may 
 cause much the same trouble as poison ivy. The 
 treatment is the same. 
 
 19 INSECT BITES 
 
 A few drops of ammonia (the aromatic spirits 
 will do) will relieve the sting. "White" wash 
 (see under Poison Ivy) is excellent. 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 185 
 
 20 BROWN TAIL RASH 
 
 This occurs mostly in the Eastern States and is 
 commonest in May and June, when the brown tail 
 caterpillar is active. Its hairs, as well as those from 
 the moth and from the cocoon, are barbed and carry 
 an irritating substance; they actually stick in the 
 flesh like tiny poisoned arrows. 
 
 Apply "white" wash (see under Poison Ivy) or 
 carbolized vaseline. 
 
 21 SUNBURN 
 
 Sunburn is spoken of in Chapter VIII. For the 
 burning of a mild case use "white" wash (see under 
 Poison Ivy) and an ointment. 
 
 22 FROSTBITE 
 
 Frostbite is spoken of in Chapter VIII. The 
 white appearance and lack of feeling in nose, cheek, 
 ears, fingers and toes indicate that they are frozen. 
 Do not warm suddenly, but rub vigorously in turn 
 with ice or snow, cold water and warmer water un- 
 til the part is red and tingling again. 
 
 23 CHAPPED HANDS 
 
 Chap is not always easy to prevent or to cure. 
 Wear warm gloves in cold weather; if wool irri- 
 
1 86 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 tates the skin, wear a fur-lined glove. Keep the 
 hands out of water as much as possible and dry 
 them thoroughly after washing. Keep the skin 
 soft by frequent applications of oily or greasy sub- 
 stances, such as cold cream, vaseline, lanolin, liquid 
 petrolatum, olive or almond oil and so forth. 
 
 24 CHILL FROM EXPOSURE 
 
 Occasionally, after being out in severe cold 
 weather and getting thoroughly "chilled through," 
 a person will have a sudden severe chill, a high tem- 
 perature, headache, nausea with vomiting, and 
 diarrhea. Rest, warm blankets and hot drinks (hot 
 black coffee) is the treatment. 
 
 25 PANICS 
 
 Don't be one of the crowd. Keep your head and 
 let others see how cool you are. If you are in a 
 building, try to keep the performance or the orches- 
 tra going. Do anything you can think of to catch 
 the crowd's attention for a minute, such, for in- 
 stance, as singing. 
 
 26 "MAD" DOG 
 A "mad" dog is a sick dog driven wild with the 
 torture of his disease. He is not running round 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 187 
 
 looking for someone to bite, but is trying to find 
 relief from his pain and will bite any man or animal 
 that gets in his way. 
 
 When you see a dog running aimlessly about^ 
 perhaps snarling and snapping and possibly with 
 saliva dripping from his mouth, get others out of 
 his way and then get out yourself. At least, try 
 not to. attract his attention. 
 
 Beyond that the aim is to capture him unharmed, 
 or, if that is impossible, to kill him. Notify the 
 police. If you are cornered and have no weapon, 
 wrap your coat thickly about your arm and hold 
 it out for the dog to bite at. Then catch him by 
 the throat, throw him, and hold him down till help 
 comes, or until you can stun or kill him. 
 
 Often a so-called "mad" dog proves not to have 
 hydrophobia at all; in order to find this out, he 
 must be watched by a veterinary. If he has the 
 disease he may be killed later. In any case of doubt, 
 especially if anyone has been bitten, make sure that 
 the dog's head and spine are sent to the city or 
 state Board of Health. If he was "mad" the micro- 
 scope will show it and the people bitten by him may 
 start on their two weeks of Pasteur treatment at 
 
 once. 
 
 27 BITES OF ANIMALS 
 
 Bites inflicted by dogs that are not "mad," and 
 by cats, rats, mice, snakes that are not poisonous 
 
1 88 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 or by any other small animal, are dangerous in just 
 the same way as are scratches and cuts. The treat- 
 ment is the same. Sterilize the wound with tinc- 
 ture of iodine or alcohol and be sure that the anti- 
 septic gets to the bottom of the wound. Cover with 
 a light dressing to keep out further infection. 
 
 28 BITES OF POISONOUS SNAKES 
 
 The fangs of poisonous snakes are hollow, like 
 a doctor's hypodermic needle. Through these, when 
 the snake bites, the poison is injected into the flesh. 
 If nothing is done it finds its way quickly into the 
 capillaries and small veins and so is spread round 
 the body in the blood. 
 
 To prevent this, tie a tight tourniquet round the 
 limb just above the wound — that is, between the 
 wound and the heart. Then, if you have no sore 
 places in your mouth, suck the wound to get out as 
 much of the poison as you can. It is a strange 
 thing that this violent poison is not harmful when 
 swallowed; still, let safety first be your motto and 
 spit out your saliva for some few minutes after- 
 ward. As you suck, pull the tiny wound open with 
 your thumbs by dragging on the nearby flesh. 
 
 The ordinary antiseptics are little match for the 
 powerful poison. Some authorities recommend that 
 a tiny crystal of permanganate of potassium be 
 
MINOR EMERGENCIES 189 
 
 pushed into the wound— or wounds, for there are 
 usually two fangs. 
 
 Watch your patient for symptoms of poisoning. 
 Stimulate him if necessary with aromatic spirits 
 of ammonia or with hot black coffee. Do not give 
 alcohol in any form. Far more persons are killed 
 by a combination of snake and whiskey than by 
 snake alone. 
 
 Remember that a tourniquet cannot be left on 
 indefinitely. At the end pf an hour loosen it for 
 a few seconds and apply it again. If, in the next 
 half hour, the patient shows no ill effects, loosen it 
 again, and so on, till you think the danger has 
 passed. But if enough poison escapes into the cir- 
 culation during those few seconds to harm the pa- 
 tient, do not loosen the tourniquet again; run the 
 chance of losing the limb by gangrene rather than 
 the life by poison. 
 
 Reach a doctor in record time; he has means of 
 fighting the poison which cannot be talked about 
 in a first aid book. 
 
 29 STYES 
 
 Styes are really small boils in the eyelids. They 
 may occur alone or in crops. Sometimes cold com- 
 presses (pieces of cloth continually dipped in ice 
 water and laid on the eye) will keep a stye from 
 developing when the lid first begins to be sore. 
 
190 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Boric acid ointment on the edge of the lid may help. 
 Irrigate the eye with boric acid solution two or three 
 times a day. 
 
 (Boric acid solution is an excellent eye wash for 
 general purposes and is prepared in this way: get 
 an ounce of the boric acid crystals — riot the powder 
 — put so many of them into a glass paft full of 
 warm water that some of them remain undissolved 
 in the bottom after you have stirred them for sev- 
 eral minutes. Cover the glass when not in use. 
 Use the clear fluid for the wash.) 
 
 Eye strain, constipation or run-down condition 
 may be responsible for these uncomfortable styes. 
 If you have many, better see a doctor. 
 
FIRST AID KITS FOR EIGHT BOYS 
 
 For a one-day hike: 
 
 One Red Cross First Aid Outfit for each boy. 
 
 For a one-to-three-day hike : 
 
 One Red Cross First Aid Outfit for each boy. 
 Several two-inch sterile gauze bandages (four are 
 
 enough). 
 Two triangular bandages. 
 One bottle of 7J^ grain bichloride of mercury 
 
 tablets. 
 One ounce of tincture of iodine. 
 One ounce of aromatic spirits of ammonia. 
 One tube of carbolized vaseline. 
 One J^-inch rubber tube, four feet long, for 
 
 tourniquet. 
 One yard of i-inch adhesive plaster. 
 One package of picric acid gauze. 
 Six safety pins. 
 
 For a one- week camp : 
 The above, plus 
 Four ounces of Epsom salts. 
 Two dozen compound cascara tablets. 
 191 
 
192 FIRST AID FOR BOYS 
 
 Scissors. 
 
 Forceps (tweezers). 
 
 Double quantity of iodine, ammonia, adhesive 
 
 plaster and pins. 
 If in a snake country, half an ounce of crystals 
 
 of potassium permanganate. 
 In the summer add a pint of 70 per cent grain 
 alcohol and a pint of "white" wash, which 
 consists of 
 
 Carbolic acid . . . . i dram or teaspoonf ul 
 
 Powdered zinc oxide i ounce 
 
 Lime water, to make up i pint 
 
 See Chapter XIII for directions for use in 
 ivy poisoning, insect bites, sunburn. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Alcohol, as antiseptic, 74 
 
 as stimulant, 19 
 Alcoholic intoxication, 66 
 Antidotes, 91-100 
 Antiseptics, 74 
 Apoplexy, 64 
 
 Aromatic spirits of am- 
 monia, 18 
 Arsenic, 97 
 Arteries, 37-53 
 Artificial respiration, 158 
 Aseptic dressings, 78-83 
 
 Bandages, ankle, 125 
 circular, 107 
 cravat, 114 
 double melon, 118 
 ear, 119 
 elbow, 122 
 eye, 119 
 
 figure of eight, no 
 fingers, 124 
 foot, IIS, 125 
 forearm, 123 
 four-tailed, 120 
 groin and thigh, 125 
 
 Bandages, head, 115 
 
 how to tie, 106 
 
 jaw, 120 
 
 knee, 125 
 
 leg, 125 
 
 material and size of; 
 105 
 
 palm, 123 
 
 purpose of, 104 
 
 recurrent, 112 
 
 shoulder, 120 
 
 single melon, 117 
 
 sling, 126 
 
 spica, 113 
 
 spiral reverse, 107 
 
 testudo. III 
 
 toes, 125 
 
 triangular, 113 
 
 whole hand, 123 
 Bichloride of mercury, as 
 
 poison, 97 
 Bites, insect, 184 
 
 of small animals, 187 
 
 snake, 188 
 Bleeding. See Hemorrhage 
 Blisters, 87, 173 
 
 193 
 
194 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Boils, 172 
 
 Breathing, in depressed 
 conditions, 10, 12 
 in head injuries, 12, 13 
 in health, 7, 9 
 
 Brown-tail rash, 185 
 
 Burns, 84-89 
 first degree, 85 
 second degree, 86-88 
 third degree, 88-89 
 
 Capillaries, 37-53 
 Carbolic acid, as poison, 96 
 Carron oil, 85 
 Carry, four-hand chair, 132 
 Chapped hands, 185 
 Chill from exposure, 186 
 Coffee, 29 
 
 Color, in depressed condi- 
 tions, 10, 12 
 
 in head injuries, 12, 13 
 
 in health, 7 
 Concussion, 62 
 Consciousness, in depressed 
 conditions, 10, 12 
 
 in head injuries, 12, 13 
 
 in health, 7 
 Constipation, 173 
 Cramps, abdominal, 175 
 
 muscle, 182 
 
 Depressed conditions, 10 
 Diagnosis, meaning of, 4 
 
 Diarrhcea, 174 
 Dislocations, diagnosis of, 
 
 150 
 of fingers, 152 
 general treatment of, 151 
 of lower jaw, 153 
 of shoulder, 153 
 
 Earache, 177 
 Electric shock, 165 
 Emetics, 92 
 Epilepsy, 68 
 Epsom salts, 98, 175 
 Eye, foreign body in, 179 
 
 Fainting, 30 
 Fits. See Epilepsy 
 Fractures, of collar bone, 
 146 
 
 comminuted, 136 
 
 compound, 135 
 
 diagnosis of, 136 
 
 of fingers, 149 
 
 of forearm, 144 
 
 general treatment of, 137 
 
 impacted, 135 
 
 kinds of, 135 
 
 of leg, 146 
 
 of lower jaw, 150 
 
 of ribs, 149 
 
 simple, 13s 
 
 splints for, 138, 147 
 
 of skull, 63, 150 
 
INDEX 
 
 195 
 
 Fractur€s, of thigh, 148 
 
 of upper arm, 145 
 Fright, 26 
 Frostbite, 89, 185 
 
 Gas accidents, 166 
 Germs, 74 
 
 Headache, 176 
 Head injuries, 13 
 Heart, 35 
 
 Heat exhaustion, 54 
 Hemorrhage, 34-53 
 
 internal, 51 
 Hiccough, 182 
 
 Infection, 73-83 
 Iodine, tincture of, 74 
 
 Kits, first aid, 191 
 
 Lifts, fireman's, 130 
 
 transfer, 129 
 Litter, 133 
 
 "Mad" dog, 186 
 
 Nosebleed, 178 
 
 Panics, 186 
 Paris green, 97 
 Peroxide of hydrogen, 82, 
 171 
 
 Phenol. See Carbolic acid 
 Poisoning, 91-100 
 
 acids, 96 
 
 alkalies, 96 
 Poison ivy, 182 
 Ptomaine poisoning, 98 
 Pulse, how to take, 7, 8 
 
 in depressec^ conditions, 
 10, 12 
 
 in head injuries, 12, 13 
 
 in health, 7 
 
 Respiration. See Breathing 
 Rough on rats, gy 
 
 Seidlitz powders, 98 
 Shivering, in shock, 29 
 Shock, 24-30 
 
 electric, 165 
 Skull fracture, 63, 150 
 Splinters, 171 
 Splints, 138, 147 
 Sprains, 181 
 Sterile dressings. See 
 
 Aseptic dressings 
 Stimulants, 18 
 Stomach ache, 175 
 Strains, 182 
 Strong emotion, 27 
 Styes, 189 
 Sunburn, 85, 185 
 Sunstroke, 54-61 
 
196 INDEX 
 
 Supra-orbital pressure, Treatment, in general, 17- 
 
 67 21 
 
 Temperature, in depressed Veins, 34-53 
 
 conditions, 10, 12 Vomiting, 92 
 
 in head injuries, 12, 13 
 
 in health, 8, 9 "White" wash, 184 
 
 Toothache, 177 Wounds, punctured, 169 
 
 Tourniquet, 48 small, 168 
 
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