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MEDICINE CHEST: FIRST AID

In these days when everybody takes the chance of needing emergency first-aid treatment, because of the use of the automobile and wide indulgence in sports and gardening, first-aid supplies may be kept in the family medicine chest. Among the materials needed are adhesive tape of various widths, sterile cotton, sterile gauze bandages, sterile gauze pads, and a scissors which should be kept in the medicine chest exclusively for such purposes. You should also have the ready-made combination of a piece of adhesive tape with a tiny piece of sterilized bandage that can be used to cover small wounds after they have been treated with iodine or mercurochrome.
Most people should know that the proper way to stop bleeding of small wounds is simply to press upon them with a sterile piece of gauze.
In cases of very serious wounds affecting arteries, and thereby difficult to control, it may be necessary to put a tourniquet around the limb. The tourniquet should be fastened just tight enough to stop the bleeding. An ordinary piece of rubber tubing or a narrow towel tied and twisted with a stick will serve most purposes satisfactorily.
The family medicine chest may also contain aromatic spirits of ammonia, which is sometimes given when a prompt stimulant is needed, following fainting. Half a teaspoonful in water, for a sudden fainting spell, is a fairly safe thing to give in most cases of this emergency.
It is not advisable to use a styptic in the form of a stick of alum to stop slight bleeding after shaving. Much better are any of the astringent surgical powders, of which a small amount may be taken from the box on each occasion and applied directly to the bleeding point.
Finally, any good talcum powder may be used after shaving and after bathing, according to the individual preferences of the users.
It is taken for granted that every modern household has a good clinical thermometer, a hot water bottle, and an ice bag. These are three exceedingly useful devices in any home, and when they are available in an emergency the comfort they give is tremendous.
In addition to the materials used for first aid, most families will have bedpans for use in cases of illness, glass drinking-tubes, syringes for giving enemas, atomizers, and sometimes special devices for creating steam to be medicated with small amounts of tincture of benzoin for relief in various forms of hoarseness or other conditions affecting the larynx and the lungs.
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