There is no doubt that the world of medicine has changed beyond recognition over the last fifty years. And yet, if the foundations of our technological society collapsed, would medicine still operate in the same way?
As doctors become increasingly specialized and increasingly dependent on the medical equipment, supplies and technology at their fingertips, it’s arguable that a 21st-century physician would find it hard to adapt to the world after SHTF.
But there are some people in our communities who hold a wealth of knowledge that would be applicable in this potential disaster scenario: our veteran nurses.
These professionals learned their skills before modern technology came on the scene, and learned the art of making do with what was available. We can learn valuable survival techniques from them.
Here are some lessons from a nurse who has lived through difficult times when a hospital is far away, there are no other resources available, or treatment is desperately needed during a war.
In an age of the “cure-all” antibiotic, some of these techniques have been all but lost, yet they are still valuable and effective.
Related: This 3500-Year-Old Powerful & Natural Cure Treats Many Diseases
Treating the Common Cold
1. Steam Inhalation
Inhaling warm, moist air has long been used as a remedy to soothe clogged sinuses.
It can help to relieve nasal irritation and swollen blood vessels, allowing you to breathe normally for a short period of time.
Prepare a large bowl of boiled water and a towel, then drape the towel over the back of your head and lean over the bowl of hot water. Breathe!
This is a good way to get relief from a common cold, flu, sinus infection, or nasal allergies without having to go to a clinic or resort to medicines. Because the water you use for steam inhalation is very hot, make sure the bowl is placed on a flat surface and can’t be tipped over.
2. Menthols
Menthol and eucalyptus oils help to open the airways and make it easier to breathe. You can use essential oils on a piece of cloth near your head.
If you are doing steam inhalation, add some menthol crystals, Vicks VapoRub or some mint or eucalyptus essential oil to your hot water.
This can be more effective than just using steam, but be careful not to add too much – a drop or two is usually enough.
Adding too much may cause damage to your sinuses.
Treating Chest Infections
3. Postural Drainage for Lung Problems
Postural drainage has been used since around 400BC to get mucus out of your lungs. The idea is for the area of lungs that are affected to be higher than your upper chest and airways, so that the mucus can move by gravity towards the larger airways.
From there, your body’s natural cleansing mechanism will help remove the mucus.
The best position for you will depend on which part of your lungs is affected. If it’s your upper chest, then a sitting position may help.
If it’s your lower lungs, try a position such as lying on your side, or lying on your front with a pillow under your hips. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. The out-breath should be twice as long as the in-breath. Do this for a few minutes, then rest.
You can do each session for 30 minutes, three times daily. Allow at least an hour after eating before doing this treatment.
4. Chest Percussion
This is also used to relieve congestion when in a postural drainage position. By gently tapping the walls of the chest, you help physically dislodge mucus that is trapped in the small airways. A cupped hand traps air and makes it more comfortable. Practice on yourself first to get the pressure right.
You can use both hands, beating to a rhythm, turning the patient from their front, then onto their sides, then facing you so can loosen the top of the lungs by beating on their back. Do this for 15-30 minutes, according to how they are responding to the treatment.
Treating Sore Throats
5. Honey
Honey is well-known for its sweet benefits, and it also has antibacterial properties.
Combining it with ginger and calamansi gives a perfect elixir for sore throats, coughs and colds. Boil some ginger root and let it cool slightly before adding your calamansi with honey and drinking it warm.
Calamansi is also known as Philippine Lime, and this can be replaced by lemon, or chamomile tea.
Related: The Antibiotic Honey That Shouldn’t Be Missing From Your Stockpile
6. Garlic
Add fresh garlic to your food when cooking. Its antimicrobial properties will help to treat the infection in your throat.
7. Homemade Gargle
Baking soda and salt dissolved in water makes a useful mouthwash or gargle for sore teeth, gums and throats.
The baking soda is anti-acidic, which reduces astringency in the mouth and limits growth of fungi and bacteria.
Treating Wounds
8. Poultices for Boils or Abscesses
Poultices have been used as a home remedy for centuries. The moist heat from a poultice helps to draw out infection and shrink abscesses naturally.
Epsom salts are the most common poultice ingredient, as this helps to dry out the pus and drain the boil.
You can make specific poultices to treat your wounds, such as a herbal poultice for minor inflammation or abrasions, bread poultices for abscesses, cysts, or splinters, baking soda poultices for minor skin irritations like razor burn, and an activated charcoal poultice for bug bites or stings.
If your poultice mixture is a paste, you can apply it directly, otherwise place the mixture on a clean cloth and then apply it.
Don’t use this if the skin is badly infected. You should also patch test before you use a poultice to make sure you won’t have an allergic reaction.
Treating Sore Muscles
9. Oral Relief for Muscle Pain
If you have muscle pain, ginger may be able to help you, as it contains an active component found in aspirin.
If you want to add a tangy flavor to your drink, you can prepare ginger tea by boiling the slices of ginger and lemon. Allow it to simmer and rest for a few minutes before serving with honey.
10. Muscle Regeneration
To make sure your body has all the nutrients it needs to regenerate muscle after an injury or strain, turn to some natural products.
Beetroot juice, cherry juice, and tomato juice are all rich in muscle-building compounds.
Related: How To Make Bulletproof Body Armor Plate
Treating Diarrhea and Digestive Complaints
11. Stay Hydrated
Dehydration is the biggest risk when suffering a bout of diarrhea, especially for children. It’s not only fluid but also salt that is lost.
Make your own electrolyte solution by mixing one liter of water with half a teaspoon of salt and 6 teaspoons of sugar for oral rehydration. If you are eating anything, eat small meals of bland food, such as rice, bananas, and soups.
12. Activated Charcoal as an Antidote to Poisoning, and Digestive Complaints
The benefits of activated charcoal have been known since ancient times. It’s called the “universal antidote”.
This is not charcoal from your barbeque, but a product made from carbon-rich materials such as wood or coconut shells, heated to very high temperatures.
There are many uses for activated charcoal, from whitening teeth, to skin care, or as a water purifier.
It is listed in the WHO’s list of essential medicines as a safe and effective medicine in a healthcare setting. To treat suspected food poisoning, you can take 1g up to four times daily.
13. Probiotics for Digestive Complaints
Although today’s understanding of probiotics was not available years ago, what was understood was that people who drank tea made from tropical fruit were less likely to catch cholera, which is an infection in the small intestine.
Saccharomyces boulardii is a yeast found in lychees and mangosteen and is available in food supplements. It can help with IBS, Chrone’s Disease, diarrhea and other digestive complaints.
Other probiotics that are helpful are fermented foods that contain live bacteria and yeast.
Treating a Fever
14. Physical Cooling
Use cool compresses on wrists, armpits, groin, back of the neck, and forehead. This will dissipate the heat.
Tepid baths can also provide relief and draw out the heat from your body. Don’t be tempted to jump in a cold bath as lowering body temperature too quickly can be dangerous.
Your body will try to heat the cooled areas and draw blood from vital organs.
Another ancient remedy is the wet sock trick. Bathe your feet in warm water and then put on a pair of socks that have been soaked in cold water. This increases circulation around the body, helping to relieve fever symptoms.
15. Understand that Fever is Killing The Infection
Fever is the body’s way of fighting an infection. Your tissues become a hot and unwelcoming place, and the bacteria and viruses find it hard to replicate and live in your feverish body!
So bringing down your temperature isn’t always the best approach. Rest to allow your body to do its job. Hydrate by drinking as much fluid as you can. Suck ice cubes if drinking is making you nauseous.
16. Treat the Symptoms
If the symptoms of the fever get too much, use some gentle herbal remedies to relieve the symptoms. Linden tea, willow bark, and ginger are all drinks that can help bring relief.
17. Chicken Soup
This comfort food has often been a relied-on cure when feeling unwell. The combination of fluid, anti-inflammatory ingredients, vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats all combine to make it an essential ingredient on the path to recovery.
These are lessons I learned from my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister. She was a nurse in Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service during WW2, and continued to apply her practical skills and level-headedness to her career and family life in the decades to follow.
By the time I was in my teens, she was in her 80s and retired, but still retained that same passion for problem-solving and treating everyday illnesses. Her enthusiasm inspired me into the medical field, ultimately choosing a path in veterinary medicine.
Yet, however, advanced the technology we come to depend on, I find my aunt’s advice still relevant today: the simplest cure is often the most effective.
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Know this is good stuff.
Can get a lot from this article…
You can learn more from the older one’s. So if you have older family members go and visit with them and hear there story’s. Just my learn something and then you can tell us so then we all we know.
I like 🙂
Don’t forget tobacco as a poultice as well. Chewing tobacco is best because of the moisture in it. Great for insect bites and stings. Apply immediately and it draws out the poison reducing swelling. I’m not dangerously allergic to flying insect stings, but the affected area swells up for a few days. Got stung on leg by a wasp and thought here we go again. Going to hurt for a few days then my cousin got his chewing tobacco out and put it on stung area and it never inflamed. Expensive poultice but readily available and worked
The dry tobacco from a cigarette will work also, just add a little spit for moisture if you don’t have a water source nearby. Just dampen it, not dripping wet and put it right on the bite/sting.
Have used both methods over the years with good results.
SMH, I fat fingered my own name!!!!!
Us retired Paramedics are a decent source of practical info also.
Ransom
So sorry Ransom. My finger slipped and I added a down vote. I tried to get rid of it by hitting the up vote that didn’t work. I appreciate your shared wisdom and would not down vote. In fact, I can not figure out why anyone would downvote that comment. It makes no sense.
Stu: No American Indian herbalist in his right mind would be without tobacco. Medicated Scotch snuff when snorted will stop an allergic asthma attack. when I get pneumonia or bronchitis, I take zinc and smoke it with some ground cloves. maybe 4 a day, and then whatever it was is gone. When my stepfather almost cut off a finger with a chainsaw near the bottom of a cow pasture, we stopped the bleeding and infection with a wad of dry tobacco. the place was all mud and manure, but no infection. Chronic coughs stop with chew. Stomach flu and urinary tract infections will stop with a chew, as will diarrhea. We have wild tobacco and jasmine in the garden. When doctors harass me about tobacco, i tell them all the benefits. If they laugh, I tell them it was Hitler who claimed tobacco is evil and then told researchers to prove it. then Penn states, which was very tender towards nazism picked it up and fudged the books to make it look like tobacco caused cancer.
niio
Yup. Must gave some tobacco. Good for man and beast. Deworm critters.
When I was a kid riding in the back of a pick-up Truck, I got stung by a wasp in the neck at high speed. The old man that was driving stopped and took a chunk of Chewing tobacco out of his mouth and stuck it to my neck and told me “hold that there, you’ll be awright”. It worked, but was discusting feeling his spit run down my neck.
For stings an effective remedy is toothpaste. I lived in SW Florida for many years where it is common to get stung (they do not “bite”) by fire ants. Left untreated these wounds end up as painful and itchy whiteheads. Promptly smearing on toothpaste made them heal without the whitehead … which the infernal itching generally got you to rip open.
Mr Ed – This is good to know! Any particular type or brand of toothpaste or will any toothpaste do the trick?
We also used it Florida. We always used a tooth Paste, not gel. The brand was what ever was cheapest.
Garlic will pull the cold out of child , I tried it my granddaughter and it worked wonders!!
Claude, I must say that of all the survival emails I get, yours are the most coveted and welcomed. Your level of contribution exceeds my expectations and I eagerly crave the next installment. I’ve learned so much from you. thank you!
Thank you so much for these kind words. I’m so glad that you’ve found these tidbits of survival knowledge I’ve shared over the years useful.
God Bless,
Claude
Hey, I get your emails and have the first of The Lost Ways books. Planning to get the second soon. Is there a book that has all the info in your emails together in one book? I have gained so much valuable knowledge from you. Thank you and God bless!!
I love these emails too! I want to get the book that focuses on the smartness of the Amish.
Can you tell me the name of this book. I have the first of the Lost ways, plan getting others soon. lucy
I got the book. It is fantastic. I am making some of the recipes for long storage. And getting some herbs now because I love the idea of not having to rely on chemicals.
Thank you so much fir all of this information!!
A great read! Anyone who knows a nurse knows that they are chuck full of excellent helpful life saving advice. When my son had a double compound fracture of his arm and a broken hand that required three surgeries with lots of hardware, a friend who was an army nurse gave me excellent advice on what to do to help him recover. At his next check up, his surgeon was amazed at his progress, and it was all with many thanks to her professional expertise. A vigorous diet along with strength training exercises helped save the day. Except for the scar one would never know he had ever had such a bad break.
I haven’t been a follower long but just love your emails Claude. Great help for the days to come no doubt. I also have 3 of your books, the latest being Home Doctor. Thank you!
Mary
I look forward to the emails everyday i learn something new an nessary thank you so much claude .oh btw r u single lol
Me too! But I’m not looking for a husband LOL
A huge question of undeniable answers and facts:
“And yet, if the foundations of our technological society collapsed, would medicine still operate in the same way?”
This article and comments are GREAT information to have, time tested procedures of our past will almost always work…and if the TEOTWAWKI EMP hits the world with a worst case scenario, then we will be sent back in time 200 years overnight and surviving unimaginable hardships and horrors nobody can be 100% ready for.
Having access to a Vietnam War era nurse and/or medic…if not priceless…they would be worth their weight in GOLD.
Good Article!!!
Well said.
An older, very high ranking officer had to stay in the hospital for tests. He was angry, outraged, and sullen. Nurses were treated with contempt. He would shout at aides, and demanded his laptop, but no matter how well they treated him, he acted like a child.
After hours of this, the head nurse, a former combat nurse used to men like him, came in and said, “I need to take your temperature.”
He opened his mouth but she shook her head. “No, sir.” She spun a finger in a circle and, mouth tight with outrage, the officer rolled over. A touch of cold grease and something was slid in.
“Don’t move till I come back,” the nurse said, warning him. “I might break in you.”
He lay still for over an hour. To his anger, the nurse had left the door open. Everyone walking by would glance in, then grin or laugh. At last, his doctor showed up only to scowl.
“What’s going on here?”
“They’re taking my temperature,” the officer said, muttering.
“With this?” The doctor pull it out and showed the officer a large, bright rose.
Moral of the story, do not never ever screw the nursing staff.
Red- Gee, By any chance was his last name Milley?
CC: Now that’s funny! niio
Very good, so true!
Tobacco is easy to grow, useful for the mentioned uses AND soaked in water an effective bug killer for your gardens. Just don’t grow it near nightshades like potatoes, tomatoes or peppers as they harbor a virus that ruins your nightshades. Obviously Don’t Use Tobacco Bug Juice on them either.
I wonder if home grown tobacco will be a trade item after things get weird? LOL I know booze always trades well 🙂
I have 6 of your books on my shelf. I love the Lost Ways and hope my grandkids are smart enough to grab these books when I’m gone.
By the way, are you married? If not I’m available!
Your first lesson is, the nurse is now your owner. Obey or suffer 🙂 If she and the doctor disagree, she is to be obeyed.
An older, very high ranking officer had to stay in the hospital for tests. He was angry, outraged, and sullen. Nurses were treated with contempt. He would shout at aides, and demanded his laptop, but no matter how well they treated him, he acted like a child.
After hours of this, the head nurse, a former combat nurse used to men like him, came in and said, “I need to take your temperature.”
He opened his mouth but she shook her head. “No, sir.” She spun a finger in a circle and, mouth tight with outrage, the officer rolled over. A touch of cold grease and something was slid in.
“Don’t move till I come back,” the nurse said, warning him. “I might break in you.”
He lay still for over an hour. To his anger, the nurse had left the door open. Everyone walking by would glance in, then grin or laugh. At last, his doctor showed up only to scowl.
“What’s going on here?”
“They’re taking my temperature,” the officer said, muttering.
“With this?” The doctor pull it out and showed the officer a large, bright rose.
Moral of the story, do not never ever screw the nursing staff.
If you get a bee sting, spit on a copper penny and put it on the sting area and the pain will go away very quickly and will heal without an itch. Im an old guy and learned this first hand (bee sting) from an older guy.
With an emphasis on COPPER. That’s why I always look at the dates on pennies. i keep the older ones in a jar and pass on the rest.
Long time reader, own your books, 45 years in medicine. This is one of the best articles I’ve ever read. Way to go.
I found that Go-Jo hand cleaner, the creme type, is very good for insect stings also. I always carry a small travel pill bottle with GO-JO hand creme cleaner when I go hunting. It has come in handy many times. Nice that is is ready to use since it is already a ‘paste’.