Bio Prepper: 27 Survival Uses for Common Mullein

From Todd Walker at Bio Prepper has a short article up on survival uses for common mullein, including instructions for making an oil infusion – 27 Survival Uses for Common Mullein Besides Cowboy Toilet Paper.

Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is easy to identify making it a safe gateway herb to wildcrafting and medicinal plants. The leafs, stalk, and root are safe for medicinal purposes.

First year plants grow as a rosette with large, wooly, hairy, velvety leaves. The silver-green foliage gives the plant an artificial waxed appearance. They grow in well-drained disturbed soil by roadways, abandoned fields, waste places, and even gravel, rocky soil in full sun.

Second year growth can reach heights over ten feet.

You may know this European weed transplant by other common names such as flannel flower, Quaker’s rouge, bunny’s ear, candle wick, great mullein, torchwort, miner’s candle, poor man’s blanket, hag’s taper, ice leaf, or Cowboy Toilet Paper. Whatever name you use, mullein has been a valuable mulituse tool for self-reliance for thousands of years.

Here’s why…

Properties of Mullein

Understanding the properties of herbs allows you to get the most out of your herbal medicine chest. Here’s the plant’s medicinal profile:

Analgesic – pain relief

Anticatarrhal – reduces inflammation of the mucous membranes (lungs, sinus, etc.)

Antispasmodic – suppresses involuntary muscle spasms

Antitussive – relieve or prevent coughs

Astringent – contraction of body tissue, typically on skin

Demulcent – forms a soothing film over mucous membranes

Diuretic – increases urine production

Expectorant – aid in the clearance of mucus from the airways, lungs, bronchi, and trachea

Mucilant – coat and protect mucous membranes

Vulnerary – promotes healing of wounds, cuts, and abrasions

For more information on medicinal properties of herbs, check out Bk2natuR’s Herbal Dictionary and other natural goodness…

Click here to read the entire article at Bioprepper.com.

Doom and Bloom: Important Aspects of Tactical Combat Casualty Care

Dr. Alton at Doom and Bloom Medicine has a short article and video dealing with Tactical Combat Casualty Care.

You may have heard me reference something called “TCCC” in previous articles, podcasts, or videos. TCCC, sometimes called T3C or T triple C, is a term that means Tactical Combat Casualty Care. It represents the recommendations with regards to prehospital care of soldiers who have incurred traumatic injuries on the battlefield. Established in the mid-1990s, TCCC guidelines have become so widely accepted that many law enforcement and civilian medical personnel have adopted them.

And well they should. These protocols were developed at the cost of painful lessons in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is thought that there were 1000 preventable deaths in these conflicts. If you add civilian injuries during the same time period, the number of preventable deaths might number in the hundreds of thousands. The TCCC’s primary goals is to save lives, prevent additional casualties, and, in true military fashion, complete the mission…In survival settings, you can’t duplicate the care given at a field hospital or a trauma center. Your final outcomes won’t always be happy. You might, however, use some of the methods in MARCH/PAWS to possibly save the life of those who would otherwise die during or in the aftermath of a disaster…

New Doom and Bloom Antibiotics and Infectious Disease Book

The Altons, authors of the Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook, have released a new book, Alton’s Antibiotics and Infectious Disease: The Layman’s Guide to Available Antibacterials in Austere Settings. Their Survival Medicine Handbook has been reviewed 477 times on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 and was well-reviewed elsewhere, too.

…We decided to educate the family medic about how to identify various infectious diseases and the medicines that cure them and their veterinary “equivalents”. We did this over the years in articles, videos, and podcasts.

Now, all the information we’ve accumulated is in one book: “Alton’s Antibiotics and Infectious Disease: The Layman’s Guide to Available Antibiotics in Austere Settings”

In “Alton’s Antibiotics and Infectious Disease”, we discuss:

How bacteria cause disease

How the immune system works to fight infection

Many different disease-causing organisms

Telling bacterial vs. viral disease

Common infectious diseases

Epidemic and pandemic diseases

How antibiotics work

Different antibiotic families

How to use antibiotics wisely

Issues with antibiotic resistance

Individual antibiotics and the diseases each one treats

Dosing, side effects, allergies, pregnancy and pediatric considerations

Expiration Dates

Establishing an epidemic sick room

Dealing with wound infections

Wound care

Supplies for the effective austere medic

Much more

A non-medical person having antibiotics on hand in disaster settings is considered controversial by the conventional medical wisdom, and for good reason. Yet, if there is no ambulance coming to render aid or hospital to treat the sick, you may become the end of the line with regards to the well-being of loved ones. Just as learning how to stop bleeding is important, learning about infection and the medicines that treat it will save lives in difficult times…

The supplies section of the book includes lists of contents for various medical kits: individual first aid kit (IFAK), family kit, dental tray, natural remedy supplies, up to and including a field hospital.

Breitbart: 80 Percent of Venezuelans Short of Food

Combined with chronic malnutrition, the report also points to the scale of the collapse of the country’s health system, with practically every major health condition ranging from tuberculosis to malaria reaching crisis levels. For example, the number of malaria cases has risen from 36,000 in 2009 to 406,000 in 2017, while 87 percent of HIV patients now do not receive their necessary drugs…Most of these conditions are going untreated, mainly due to a lack of necessary medical resources and trained specialists.

Dr. Alton: Human Waste Disposal Off Grid

Dr. Alton at Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine has a post up on Human Waste Disposal Off the Grid, talking about the danger of infectious diseases when the grid and/or utilities are down. If you are in the Cascade Subduction Zone total destruction area, this is relevant for you. It’s also relevant to anyone else who may be subject to a grid-down scenario.

Most of our readers don’t live in an underdeveloped country, so they might assume that their infrastructure will stay intact even after a disaster; Also, they might continue to count on clean drinking water and safely prepared food. Likewise, they think there will always be ways to easily flush waste from our immediate surroundings so that it goes far, far away to a treatment facility.

When our infrastructure is damaged, however, we become easy prey for infectious disease. You only have to look back a few years to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the subsequent Cholera epidemic there to know this is true.

Earthquake Tent City in Haiti 2010

We’ve discussed problems related to food and water often in the past, so let’s talk about waste. If you can safely dispose of waste, you will have the best chance to stay healthy.

When electrical power is lost for a significant period due to a storm or other disaster, water utilities cannot operate the pumps that maintain water pressure in the pipes of your home. This pressure is one way that utilities ensure that your waste goes to a facility that can eliminate harmful bacteria. Without it, a “boil-water” order is often issued by the authorities.

Harsh lessons learned as a result of disasters have led to the outfitting of waste treatment facilities with generators. Generator power is helpful, but only while you have fuel.

Therefore, we must realize that human sewage will be a big problem not only in the aftermath of a storm but also in a long-term disaster. If the water isn’t running, a community without a ready supply of it will have a nightmare on their hands after as little as three days.

There are various examples of this in the recent past. In the grand majority, people were clueless as to how a flush toilet worked. After filling whatever porcelain options were available, they proceeded to pick rooms where they would relieve themselves and, as a result, their homes were uninhabitable in less than a week…

Read the entire article at Doom and Bloom.

Beyond Antibiotics: 20 Medical Supplies to Store

Who doesn’t like talking about first aid? Everyone wants help for the hurts. The Prepper Journal has an article up, Beyond Antibiotics: 20 Medical Supplies To Store for TEOTWAWKI (h/t to John Mosby for the link). We’ve talked about first aid kits in the past. Check your supplies.

When it comes to medical supplies, some preppers store antibiotics, Band-Aids, Tylenol, maybe a bit of gauze and call it good. Perhaps a few more things, but not much because they’ve got a doctor in the group, or barring that, silver or barter goods and skills to be able to make arrangements with a doctor.

Unfortunately, that approach may not work out so well.

Realistically, how many supplies can a physician be expected to stockpile for a community? How many physicians are actually preppers who foresee a need? Post-disaster, it will be far easier to locate a physician who knows how to use supplies than it will be to locate the supplies themselves. While obtaining prescription medications in quantity is a challenge, fortunately many life-saving supplies and medications can be purchased right now, by anybody.

So let’s discuss some of these medications and medical supplies that we should acquire before TEOTWAWKI. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it is a good start…

Click here to read the entire article.

Medic Shack: Civil War and Disease

Chuck at The Medic Shack has an article up describing the increase in disease during modern civil wars and the lack of preparedness in the professional medical facilities.

Over the years we have talked about nuclear war chemical war, SHTF because of crazy politicians, money collapse, and general bad things. One thing that Cat the Herbal Prepper and touched in in past Medic Shack and Herbal Prepper Live shows is normal diseases that follow war, or SHTF collapse.

So lets look at 2 recent civil wars. Bosnia and Syria.
First off lets start with the worst mistake made in medicine at the beginning of the civil war.
There were HUGE signs of the impending war. The crash of Communism, the heated political rhetoric. The clashes between the 3 sides in small isolated conflicts.

So No preparations were made, no stockpiling of medications, no reorganization plan to help them quickly adapt to wartime conditions – if the need arised. As a result, the hospitals in Sarajevo ran out of basic surgical material (dressings, bandages, sutures, cleaning solutions, and similar) within the first three months of the siege. Essential medications, oxygen, and anesthetic gases were at a premium, and the power and water supply were cut off after several months. At the end of the first year medicine had returned to the mid 1800s level of technology. Another problem that I can see happening is the health care post SHTF going to “highest bidder” Meaning If you can pay you get treated. If not. So sorry Charlie. Don’t tell me it won’t happen. You all have seen the deterioration of medical ethics today. Doctors putting in pacemakers on people who don’t need them. Writing scripts on expensive drugs to treat a patient where a proven, less expensive drug, or no illness at all, to get some kick back from Big Pharma. I could go on but this is not what this news letter is about.
After the major medical centers closed and supplies were not to be found and good clean food and water was not available disease reared its wartime head. The official statement by WHO and the Red Cross was limited spread of infectious disease’s happened during the war. In reality, Typhus, Cholera Parasitic intestinal infections (Giardia Cryptosporidia) rose rapidly. Due to malnutrition there was a huge increase in deaths from flu measles and exposure. Scarlet Fever killed 2 out of 10 children under the age a of 6. Due to lack of clean water for hygiene fleas lice, mites and other insects infested the population. Outbreaks of Bubonic plague happened. Also instances of Bartonellosis (Trench Fever) Leishmaniases, Lyme disease Hepatitis A and C and others. Since it was declared a non outbreak event by the WHO there are few numbers to support the claims of eyewitnesses of the event.

Lets fast forward to the 21^st century and Syria. Syria did not have the same level of medical infrastructure that central Europe had. Health care was situated in the larger cities and towns and the rural population made their ways to the cities or treated themselves.

The Syrian civil war on the other hand has had and does have extensive coverage by the WHO and other medical organizations. And the documentation of disease during the war is published and it is in a word scary.

The war started inn 2011. In Syria Hepatitis A was almost unheard of. By 2012 an average of 2200 cases a year appeared. Typhoid less than 50 in 2011. By 2012, 1150.

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis. In 2011 less than 100. By 2012 52,900 cases. There is incomplete data after 2012 since the information is highly controlled and unverifiable.

One thing that is similar between both modern civil wars. No preparations were made by the local medical community. All the signs were there but no one in government or medical leaders choose to do something.

So what does all this have to do with the Prepared Medical Prepper?

EVERYTHING.

As we see from recent history the government nor the national and local health communities will do NOTHING to prepare for anything until its to late. Are we on the cusp of a civil war? It very possible giving the current state of relation we have with each other in our own country. The divisional racial wedge that has been driven between us. And the current fight we have about The Constitution of The Untied States.

So what do we need to look out for?

Click here to read the entire article at The Medic Shack.

Survival and Austere Medicine, 3rd Edition Link

In 2017, the Remote, Austere, Wilderness & Third World Medicine discussion board moderators released their third Edition of the Survival and Austere Medicine ebook. The third edition grew to over 600 pages compared to the second edition’s 200+pages.

While the original content of the FAQ and the subsequent edition remains valid, we thought it was time it underwent an update again. We hope you will find it useful. It is offered in good faith but the content should be validated and confirmed from other sources before being relied on even in an emergency. It is a tool to help you with medical care in an austere or ‘grid-down’ environment.

When the original FAQ and previous edition were written, there were very few books aimed at the “Practicing Medicine after the End of the World as We Know It” market – however over the last couple of years several books of varying quality have been published, offering information on this topic.

We like to think we are the original “Medicine at the End of the World” guide and our uniqueness in the current market place comes from our history and that it is the collaborative work of a group of experienced medically orientated preppers and survivalists. Between us, we have extensive experience in pre-hospital, austere, remote and third world medicine – both with the military and NGO’s. We do this stuff – we understand the limits of the environment and the issues of supply and improvisation. We have trained lay people to do complex medical procedures and provide health care in their remote communities. We have undertaken community medical needs assessments and the delivery of health care after natural disasters. We have given anaesthetics and done surgery in tents in the back of beyond. While the [stuff] hasn’t hit the fan in Western Countries yet, you don’t have to look far to find accurate analogies to likely Collapse Medicine and between us we have experience working in these locations and situations. This makes our book unique.

The other unique fact about this book is that it remains free! It’s a labour of love for us and we have enjoyed the comradery of putting it together. We are passionate about helping to improve the neglected ‘Band-Aid’ bit of the “Beans, Bullets and Band-Aid’s” mantra

common in prepper and survivalist circles. We have spent countless hours on this book project, not to make money, but to genuinely improve

people’s levels of medical preparedness.

Short Contents:

Medicine at the end of the world

The Context of Austere Medical Practice

What do I need to know?

Organizational Issues

Medical Kits

Clinical Assessment

Emergency Care in an Austere Environment

The Clinical FAQ’s

Infectious Disease and Antibiotics

Sedation and Anesthesia in an Austere Environment

Major Surgical Procedures

Wounds

Family planning, pregnancy, and childbirth

Considerations in Children

Austere Dental Care

The Basic Laboratory

Sterilization and Disinfection

Medical Aspects of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare

Medical Aspects of Shelter Living

Austere Mental Health Care

Nursing Care in an Austere Environment

Botanical and Herbal Medicine

Primitive Medicine

Survival Aspects of Veterinary Medicine

Austere Medicine Sound Bites and Lessons Learned

Survival Medicine fiction

Reference Books