The Natural First-Aid Kit –
|
| HOUSEHOLD | FOOD | HERBAL | APPARATUS |
| Baking soda | Banana peels | Castor oil | Hot water bottle |
| Mud | Black tea bags | Aloe Vera | Enema bag and hose |
| Salt | Blackberries – wine, jam, etc. | Jewelweed | Heating pad |
| Vinegar | Okra | Activated Charcoal | Ice bag |
| Plain soap | Honey | Rosehip Vit. C | Plastic wrap |
| Ice | Orange juice | Coca-Cola | Forceps |
| Water | White sugar | Spirits of Camphor | Adhesive Tape |
| Epsom Salts | Grape Juice | Comfrey | Needle & Thread |
*Bandages: If you’d like more natural bandages in your first-aid kit, you can cut strips out of old cotton sheets, or linen or cotton clothing, leaving the strips as long as possible. Make some half an inch wide, some an inch, and some 2 inches. Roll them up for storage, and put a rubber band around them. When you use them, fasten them in place either with safety pins or by tying a knot.
WHAT SHOULD THE NATURAL FIRST-AID KIT DO?
Every day, our families face things like constipation, minor burns, cuts, arthritis, hemorrhoids, sprains, injury recovery, eye problems, stomachache, and diarrhea, to mention just a few. Let’s start right there.
• Bee stings
o When I’m out in the garden, and don’t want to go in the house, I still use mud on a bee sting. At least two things are at work here: (1) The mud seals out air, preventing it from hurting, and (2)there are natural antibiotics in good soil.
o But if that doesn’t work as well as I’d like, I follow up later with baking-soda paste from my first-aid kit. It never fails to surprise me how the pain can stop in minutes.
• Minor burns
o Aloe Vera - Keep a plant growing in a pot – break off a tip and smear the juice on the burn.
o Black tea bags or loose tea – spread grounds on burn after steeping, or use expended teabags. Wrap with gauze.
o Honey – spread on burn, and wrap.
o Battery acid burns - baking soda flush or apply powder directly.
• Poison Ivy – People often laugh at this, but it can cause a lot of misery, including severe reactions in some. So it’s worth having counteragents in your first-aid kit.
o Soap and water – wash thoroughly as soon as possible. Use very plain soap, like Castile soap, or the plainest Ivory. This removes the oil that causes the irritation.
o Jewelweed paste – This plant grows
wild in moist places in summer. It grew
abundantly around our shady rocked-
in spring where we used to get
drinking water when I was a kid.
Crush leaves and blossoms, and smear
on. Some people brew a tea, and pour
it into their bath water. Euell Gibbons
would freeze tea in an ice-cube tray,
available whenever needed. Also, some
have applied it as a preventative.
• Poison Ivy -- More health remedies
o Baking soda paste
o Aloe Vera
o Banana peel
o Oatmeal – Some swear by this: cook it normally, and when just warm, spread it on affected areas. It hardens, and produces relief.
• Wounds - Ever wonder how people survived infection in the ancient world with all those sword wounds?
o They used molasses or honey to quickly heal and prevent infection. The bacteria in the wound burn themselves out by trying to multiply too fast. But today, they’ve found that plain white sugar is even better, because it’s less nutritious. This works wonderfully on bedsores, too. (It’s an old Southern remedy.)
o Salt was also used on wounds. It’s excruciatingly painful, but it will kill infection. It was the ancient world’s answer to gangrene.
o Castor oil loves a wound. Using a pack over the wound can have remarkable results. No pain, either. I would consider castor oil and baking soda the two most important ingredients in the natural first-aid kit. See Castor Oil and The Oil Pack with the Magic Touch.
• External Infection on extremities
o Hot water - We use this on infected finger cuts primarily. Run a tiny stream of hot water over the infected area. After a moment, it will actually sooth the cut. We find this especially effective before bed, to keep a cut quiet all night. It heals faster than ordinary disinfectants like wood alcohol, which create more dead skin for bacteria to inhabit.
o Banana peels – South Pacific Islanders made this an essential ingredient in their first-aid kits, because, when crushed and placed on the wound, they have an antibiotic action in healing.
• First-aid kit for sprains, minor injuries and arthritis (All six items below are Edgar Cayce Remedies. For more, click on the link.)
o Castor Oil
o Egyptian oil
o Alkathyme (or Glycothymoline) pack.
o Hot salt packs – Kosher salt or plain sea salt is best. Heat salt (as hot as you can stand comfortably) and wrap it in a towel over or around the affected part. Cover with more towels or plastic wrap. Keep it warm with a heating pad.
o Salt saturated with vinegar – Similar to above, but first add vinegar to the salt, enough to moisten but not liquefy it. Tip: If the problem is a hand or foot, put on a large sock or glove and feed the salt mixture down it -- economical and easy to handle.
o Hot shower or bath. (Baths... Try 4 to 20 pounds of Epsom Salts)
• Fever and colds
o Orange juice. This is also an Edgar Cayce remedy, and we have personally had remarkable results in reducing fever. (Organic is ideal, but we’ve used the regular stuff, too.)
o Baking soda in water – 1 teaspoon to a cup. Take 1 cup every hour during severe colds. This will help you feel much better, and if taken when a cold is coming on, it can prevent it, especially if taken with citrus fruits. (Do not mix with drugs – this confuses the body.)
• Overheating (Sick, but not passed-out)
o Soak clothing, wet head, and/or use ice bag on head
o Soak feet in cold water
• Heat Stroke (Person passes out)
o Submerge person in ice water immediately (or coldest place around) to prevent brain damage. If at a ball game, use the ice-cold contents of someone’s cooler to soak clothing and bathe head till ambulance arrives.
• Diarrhea
o Black tea
o Blackberries – wine, jam – any blackberry product
o Boiled okra
o Formula 208, an Edgar Cayce remedy. This is the single most effective cure for diarrhea that we have ever found! It quickly stopped a case of dysentery that plagued me, once, for a year and a half!
• Constipation
o Prunes or prune juice
o Cooked spinach, or a small bowl of narrow-leaf dock, growing wild in the spring
o Drinking a lot of baking-soda water can work for some.
o Eat lots of citrus fruits
o Enema - Dissolve one teaspoon each of salt and baking soda in a quart of lukewarm water, and employ the bag and hose purchased at a drug store. It’s not very pleasant, but it doesn’t last long, and can help to prevent things like the common cold and flu in the short run, and serious maladies, such as colon cancer, in the long run.) Don’t treat regular constipation as minor – this is a vital ingredient for the natural first-aid kit!
BASIC CHEMISTRY FOR THE ORGANIC-MINDED
Despite the fact that many of us flunked chemistry, it’s a simple fact that most substances in the world divide crudely into the acid (sour) and the alkaline (salty). Oftentimes you can counteract the harmful effects of one kind with the opposite kind. (EXTERNALLY ONLY! None of these items are to be taken internally as counteragents! READ THE LABEL FOR EMERGENCY INTERNAL TREATMENTS.)
Knowing the basic nature of some common household items can be vital knowledge for the first-aid kit:
| DANGEROUS SUBSTANCE | PROPERTY | COUNTERAGENT |
| BATTERY ACID | ACID | SALT, BAKING SODA (alkaline) |
| LYE DRAIN CLEANER | ALKALINE | VINEGAR (acid) |
| MURIATIC ACID (products like CLR) | ACID | SALT, BAKING SODA (alkaline) |
| CHLORINE BLEACH | ALKALINE | VINEGAR (acid) |
The information in our first-aid kit is intended only as a collection of simple natural remedies, to encourage thinking in the right direction: Conventional first aid is a vast area, and entire websites have been devoted to it. But if you want basic knowledge that doesn't blow you away with complexity, take a look at The Boy Scouts of America.
Top of Page
Return from First-Aid Kit to Natural Medicine
Return from The Natural First-Aid Kit to Home Page
