Page:Guide to health.djvu/152

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140
A GUIDE TO HEALTH

in a tin ready for use. It should be so kept as to be exposed to light and air, and free from dampness. Suitable bandages of cloth should also be kept so as to be within reach when needed. These will be found useful not only in snake-bite, but in numberless other cases as well.

If the patient has lost consciousness, or if respiration seems to have ceased, the process of artificial respiration already described in connection with drowning should be resorted to. Hot water, or preferably a decoction of cloves and the bark of the bay-tree, is very useful for recovering consciousness. The patient should be kept in the open air, but if his body seems to have taken cold, bottles of hot water should be employed, or a piece of flannel dipped in hot water and wrung out should be rubbed over the body, to produce warmth.




Chapter XIII

SOME ACCIDENTS—(Contd.)

Scorpion-Sting

Our familiar expression, "May God never give any man the pain of scorpion-sting", shows how keen that pain is. In fact, this pain is even sharper than that of snake-bite, but we do not dread it so much, since it is much less fatal.