Doctor Who? Heal Thyself! DIY Doctoring To Digital Doctors!
Aug 10, 2015 22:08:33 GMT -6
Daitengu, Doug, and 3 more like this
Post by omegalogos on Aug 10, 2015 22:08:33 GMT -6
Explanation: I am legally insane yadda yadda blah blah [spits and then drags on ciggy] and this is my surgical strike on who and what we are and what needs doing regardless of the current status quo ...
So I had been musing upon one of Robert Heinlein's quotes [elise.com] ...
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
... and specifically setting a bone made me think of barbers surgeons ...
Barber [wiki]
In previous times, barbers (known as barber surgeons) also performed surgery and dentistry.
Barber Surgeon [wiki]
The barber surgeon was one of the most common medical practitioners of medieval Europe – generally charged with looking after soldiers during or after a battle. In this era, surgery was not generally conducted by physicians, but by barbers (who of course had a sharp-bladed razor as an indispensable tool of their profession). In the Middle Ages in Europe barbers would be expected to do anything from cutting hair to amputating limbs. Mortality of surgery at the time was quite high due to loss of blood and infection. Doctors of the Middle Ages thought that taking blood would help cure the patient of sickness so the barber would apply leeches to the patient. Physicians tended to be academics, working in universities, and mostly dealt with patients as an observer or a consultant. They considered surgery to be beneath them.
Barber Surgeons Tools ...
Surgical instrument case and instruments, English, 1650-1700 [ssplprints.com]
Description
The case is made of silver mounted shagreen (fish skin), bearing the arms of the Barber Surgeons' Company. The instruments consist of scisors, a tongue depresor, forceps, probes, and lancets. The double-edged blades of the lancets are placed between tortoise-shell covers with inverted screws, they were used for opening veins for blood letting. The various sizes and shapes of lancet were used on veins of different sizes or locations.
The case is made of silver mounted shagreen (fish skin), bearing the arms of the Barber Surgeons' Company. The instruments consist of scisors, a tongue depresor, forceps, probes, and lancets. The double-edged blades of the lancets are placed between tortoise-shell covers with inverted screws, they were used for opening veins for blood letting. The various sizes and shapes of lancet were used on veins of different sizes or locations.
We can do better than that!
I had the fortune to run across information on how to make Chloroform, an anesthetic ...
Caution: By accessing the hidden info You agree to use this technical information at your own risk and I strongly remind everybody that a Doctors oath is primarily to do no harm.
Bleach and Alcohol Make Chloroform. Why You Shouldn't Mix Bleach and Alcohol [chemistry.about.com] and both these items would also come in very useful with obvious uses when performing ad hoc surgery post shtf such as bleach sterilizing the operating theater and alcohol swabbing sterilizing the body area to be worked on.
And I noticed that the tool kit also lacked a drill which I feel is vital BECAUSE I am the unofficial leader of the Amateur Trepanners Guild ...Post SHTF, You will need us like you need a hole in the head!
Trepanning [wiki]
Country doctor uses household drill on patient's skull [boingboing.net]
Over at BB Gadgets, Rob posts the heartwarming tale of Rob Carson, a country doctor in Maryborough, Australia, who saved a 12-year-old boy's life by drilling a hole in his skull using a Black And Decker drill. The young fellow, Nicholas Rossi, had fallen off his bike and had a brain hemorrhage. Needing to relieve the pressure on the boy's brain, Carson grabbed a drill from the small hospital's maintenance closet and performed the trepanation.
Over the telephone, Melbourne neurosurgeon David Wallace walked (Carson) through the procedure...
''They stabilised Nicholas to start off with (and) they put him under anaesthetic and then Dr Carson came out and he said that he had 'one shot at this' and said what he wants to do is to drill into Nicholas' head to relieve pressure on the brain,'' (Nicholas Rossi's father) said.
Dr Carson drilled a hole just below the bruise mark, above Nicholas' ear, until a blood clot came out. He used forceps to increase the hole to about a centimetre in diameter, then inserted a drainage tube to keep the blood flowing out of the boy's skull...
Over the telephone, Melbourne neurosurgeon David Wallace walked (Carson) through the procedure...
''They stabilised Nicholas to start off with (and) they put him under anaesthetic and then Dr Carson came out and he said that he had 'one shot at this' and said what he wants to do is to drill into Nicholas' head to relieve pressure on the brain,'' (Nicholas Rossi's father) said.
Dr Carson drilled a hole just below the bruise mark, above Nicholas' ear, until a blood clot came out. He used forceps to increase the hole to about a centimetre in diameter, then inserted a drainage tube to keep the blood flowing out of the boy's skull...
The Hole Story on Trepanation [damninteresting.com]
And so that sets the scene for post apocalyptic shtf DIY Doctoring and Simple Barber Surgery and I am not sorry that I had to drill that into your skull!
Now on to preping for the future ...