Doomsday Medicine By Mrs Vera West

Many books contemplating the collapse neglect to think about medical aspects. This became somewhat relevant to ordinary people, with the Covid freak-out in 2020, and still continuing, with restrictions on hospital services, and security checking at even the local GP, that made one stay away unless it was vital. But, what about when there is no doctor, and help is not on the way?

Two books address this issue. Joseph Alton and Amy Alton, The Survival Medicine Handbook (2013) and Ralph Guardia, The Doomsday Book of Medicine, (2015). These books should be purchased in hard copy, and kept just in case. In fact, I use both of them now to try and deal with issues myself, along with Dr Google.

The authors are mainstream doctors, but are open to alternative and herbal treatments, because, after Big Pharma, that is all one will have. Guardia’s book is the strongest on herbal treatments, and it is a good first step to learning about this field, and then broadening one’s knowledge. The books in the early chapters attempt to introduce the reader to medical problem solving, to get thinking about illnesses and injuries the causes and what to then do. For some conditions, especially anything involving more than elementary surgery, there may not be a lot to do, since in collapse situations surgery becomes difficult, even if there is a surgeon available. But the message is that for many injuries, such as torn and ruptured tendons, the body can repair itself in a fashion.

There is too much material to go into any detail on here. My overall impression from having both of these books to dip into, is that they would be important additions to any home, especially in the outback where medical services are not so good, which is something of an analogue of collapse medicine. The book by the Alton’s is better organised, with a good index, while Guardia’s book does not have one, and adding one would certainly help.