Survival & Austere Medicine: An Introduction

With the breakdown of infrastructure, access to advanced medical help would be, at best, limited. Poor hygiene & disrupted water supplies would lead to an increase in diseases such as typhoid fever and cholera. People suffering from chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, or epilepsy would be severely affected, with many dying. With no antibiotics, there would be no treatment for bacterial infections- pneumonia or a simple cut could kill again and high mortality rates would be associated with any surgery. The same would apply to painkillers- a broken leg would be agony, and dying of cancer would be distressing for both the patient and their family. Vaccine preventable diseases would make a comeback- polio, tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria and mumps would be commonplace again. In the absence of oral contraceptives or condoms the pregnancy rate would rise and, with it, the maternal and neonatal death rates. Teeth would rot without proper dental care and painful extractions would have to be performed without anaesthesia. The limited medical supplies available would have to be recycled, resulting in an increase in the spread of hepatitis and HIV infection.
We take health care for granted.
We wish to provide you with the knowledge needed to approach health care after large scale, long-term, grid-down disaster. This book will equip you to deal with many common medical problems when modern health care facilities are not available.