Page images
PDF
EPUB

HINTS FOR ACCIDENTS AND

EMERGENCIES.

WHEN a person sustains any severe bodily injury, he is apt to be faint. His clothing should be loosened about the neck, waist and wrists. He should have plenty of fresh air, and should be gently fanned. A strong mustard-plaster applied to the pit of the stomach, and others to the calves of the legs, will do good in severe cases, and a teaspoonful of brandy, with fifteen drops of laudanum, in a little water, may be given every fifteen minutes till he is revived.

In cases of heat or sun-stroke, lay the person in a cool, shady place. Loosen his clothing. Let the bystanders rub the arms and legs with pieces of ice wrapped in towels until the excessive heat of surface is allayed. Give twenty drops of aromatic spirits of hartshorn in a little water every twenty minutes or half hour. (This is far better than brandy.) He should not be allowed to make any effort to rise or walk till quite restored.

When a man falls in a fit, loosen the clothing but keep the head and shoulders raised. Give him plenty of air; the bystanders must not be allowed to crowd around him. He will soon come to himself if let alone, and should then be kept quiet till he is able to go or be removed to his home.

Burns are best treated by applying soft linen rags thickly spread with fresh lard. (The salt and alum in lard as sold may be readily washed out by stirring it up with water.)

When a limb is broken, it should be gently drawn into shape, and a piece of board rather wider than the limb, and well padded with cotton, applied on either side; handkerchiefs or rags may then be tied around the whole, so as to keep the bones in place. Sometimes, when the leg or thigh is broken, the sound limb may be made to act as a splint.

The stings of insects may be relieved by applying a little spirits of hartshorn, or by putting on a poultice of moist clay.

The bites of animals-dogs or cats-should be washed and thoroughly sucked; then a stick of nitrate of silver (lunar caustic) should be firmly pushed down to the very bottom of each toothprint, and rubbed round in it. A red-hot nail will answer if the caustic is not at hand. Afterward poultice.

Insects in the ear may be destroyed by pouring in sweet oil, olive oil or glycerine. Syringing will then remove them, and should be done early.

Persons apparently drowned should be laid gently down, their wet clothing quickly torn off, and dry blankets wrapped all round them. Then artificial respiration should be made, by drawing the arms away from the sides, bringing the elbows up together above the head, pushing the arms down again and round, so that the elbows meet over the pit of the stomach, and so on, at the rate of about sixteen times in a minute. As the arms are brought down, gentle but firm pressure should be made on the stomach just below the end of the breast-bone.

Bleeding from wounds may be checked by firmly tying a handkerchief around the limb above the injured part. A stone or piece of wood or a firm bundle of rags may be first placed on the artery, if this can be felt beating, so as to compress it. Such constriction should only be temporarily made until a surgeon's aid can be had.

POISONS AND THEIR ANTIDOTES. ALMOST always the first thing to be done in any case of poisoning is to induce vomiting. This may be done by tickling the throat (within) by means of a feather; or by warm water, with a teaspoonful of mustard to the tumblerful, well stirred up. Sulphate of zinc (white vitriol) may be used in place of the mustard or powdered alum. Powder of ipecacuanha, a teaspoonful rubbed up with molasses, may be employed for children, Tartar emetic should never be given, as it is excessively depressing, and uncontrollable in its effects.

The stomach-pump can only be used by skillful hands and even then with caution.

Opium and Other Narcotics.-After vomiting has occurred cold water should be dashed over the face and head. The patient must be kept awake, walked about between two strong persons, made to grasp the handles of a galvanic battery, dosed with strong coffee, and vigorously slapped. Belladonna is an antidote for opium and for morphia, etc., its active principles; and, on the other hand, the latter counteract the effects of belladonna. But a knowledge of medicine is necessary for dealing with these articles.

Strychnia. After emetics have been freely and successfully given, the patient should be allowed to breathe the vapor of sulphuric ether, poured on a handkerchief and held to the face, in such quantities as to keep down the tendency to convulsions. Bromide of potassium, twenty grains at a dose, dissolved in syrup, may be given every hour.

Alcoholic Poisoning should be combated by emetics, of which the sulphate of zinc, given as above directed, is the best. After that strong coffee internally, and stimulation by heat externally, should be used.

Acids are sometimes swallowed by mistake. Alkalies, lime-water, magnesia or common chalk mixed with water may be freely given, and afterward mucilaginous drinks, such as thick gum

water or flaxseed-tea.

Alkalies are less frequently taken in injurious strength or quantity, but sometimes children swallow lye by mistake. Common vinegar may be given freely, and then castor or sweet oil in full doses-a tablespoonful at a time, repeated every half hour or hour.

Nitrate of silver when swallowed is neutralized by common table-salt freely given in solution in water.

The salts of mercury or arsenic often kept as bed-bug poison), which are powerful irritants, are apt to be very quickly fatal. Milk or the whites of eggs may be freely given, and afterward a very thin paste of flour and water. In these cases an emetic is to be given after the poison is neutralized.

Phosphorus paste, kept for roach-poison or in parlor-matches, is sometimes eaten by children, and has been willfully taken for the purpose of suicide. It is a powerful irritant. The first thing to be done is to give freely of magnesia and water; then to give mucilaginous drinks, as flaxseed tea, gum-water or sassafras-pith and water; and, lastly, to administer finely-powdered bone-charcoal either in pill or in mixture with water.

In no case of poisoning should there be any avoidable delay in obtaining the advice of a physician, and, meanwhile, the friends or bystanders should endeavor to find out exactly what has been taken, so that the treatment adopted may be as prompt and effective as possible.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Vacant....

M. J. Cramer, Ky....
C. Wuwellber, Iowa.
ELIHU B. WASHBURNE, Ill.
J. C. BANCROFT DAVIS, N. Y.
ROBERT C. SCHENCK, O..
J. Meredith Read, N. Y.
(See Central America)..
Henry A. Peirce, Mass..
Ebenezer D. Bassett, Pa.
GEORGE P. MARSH, Vt..
JOHN A. BINGHAM, O.....
J. Milton Turner, Mo.......
JOHN W. FOSTER, Ind.....
F. D. Stockbridge, Mich..
RICHARD GIBBS, N. Y.
Benjamin Moran, Pa.....
GEORGE H. BOKER, Pа....
CALEB CUSHING, Va.....
C. C. Andrews, Minn.
Horace Rublee, Wis.....
Horace Maynard, Tenn..
John C. Caldwell, La...
Thomas Russell, Mass......

App

1869

Foreign Ministers to the United States. 1874 SEÑOR DON RAFAEL GARCIA.. 1875 Count Ladislas Hoyos, E.E. and M.P. 1875 1865 Maurice Delfosse.....

1874 No representative.

1872 COUNCILLORA.P.DECARVALHO BORGES 1871 1873 Vacant.

1873 Señor DonAdolfo Ibañez, E.E.and M.P. 1875
1874 No Representative.

1870 Mr. J. H. de Hegermann-Lindencrene, 1873
1875 No Representative.
1869 M. BARTHOLDI...

1874 MR. KURD Von Scholzer.
1870 SIR EDWARD THORNTON.
1873 No Representative.

SEÑOR DON VICENTE DARDON...
1869 Mr. E. H. Allen.......................
1869 Mr. Stephen Preston.....
1861 BARON ALBERT BLANC....
1873 lushie Yoshida Kiyonari.....
1871 No Representative.

1873 SEÑOR DON IGNACIO MARISCAL...
1875 Mr. de Pestel....

1874

1871

1868

(1872

1870

1873

*1875

1574

1869

1874

1875 COL. DON MANUEL FREYRE...
1874 Baron de Sant Anna..

(1869

1874

1875 Mr. Nicholas Shishkin, E.E. and M.P... 1875

1874

SEÑOR DON ANTONIO MANTILLA DE
LOS RIOS

1874

1869 MR. OLUF Stennersen

1870

[blocks in formation]

Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary in SMALL CAPS; Ministers Resident in Roman; Chargés d'Affaires in Italics.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic]
[graphic]
« PreviousContinue »