Treatment Of Common Complaints

Northern Advocate, 25 October 1941, Page 3

Treatment Of Common Complaints

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

No. 14 : TAKE CARE WITH POISONS (Prepared and Issued By The Health Department). Prussic acid is a colourless, harmlesslooking liquid, with a strong smell of almonds about it. But is as swift and as deadly as a bullet. A drop on your tongue and you’ll be dead in a matter of seconds. Most people know the terrible reputation of prussic acid; the mere mention of it is usually enough for them. They have a deep-rooted and healthy respect for its fearful properties, though few outside professional men have occasion to handle it. If that •same respect was accorded poisons and poisonous compounds usually found in the home —many of them just as deadly —accidental poisoning would not be so tragically frequent. A case of poisoning must be treated at once. Call a doctor, and. if possble tell him the kind of poison taken, so that he can bring an antidote. While waiting his arrival make the patient vomit as quickly as possible—except jn cases where the lips anrl mouth have been burned by an acid poison (sulphuric, hydrochloric, nitric etc). Acid is a corrisive poison. Administer some neutralising agent such as soapsuds, or baking soda in water, or lime (scrape the plaster off the wall, if necessary). For carbolic acid give Epsom salts in water, or vinegar, soapsuds, or raw whites of eggs in water; but do not use oil. For poisoning by lye, caustic soda or caustic potash, apply vinegar and lemon juice, and, in this instance, follow with oils. For bichloride of mercury (corrosive sublimate), and for fly, rat or insect poisons, and matches, use alum water, or mustard water, or salt water, or whites of eggs or oils. In the case of poisoning from matches, oil must not be used, however. Vomiting may be induced by tickling the back of the patients throat, or by administering a good emetic, such as a strong solution of salt in> water, or mustard in water. • Label poisons boldly, and ke-'p them out of reach of children’s fingers, preferably in a small lock-up cupboard. No medicine should be taken without examining the labels carefully. Medicine bottles, or containers which have no labels, or where the label is unreadable, should be thrown away. _