Survival Medicine: Where There is No Doctor By Mrs Vera West

I have previously reviewed both Joseph Alton and Amy Alton, The Survival Medicine Handbook (2013) and Ralph Guardia, The Doomsday Book of Medicine, (2015), which are some of the few books concerned with collapse or survival medicine, a situation where literally medical help will not be on the way, where there are no hospitals and people need to take care of their medical needs themselves. Situations like this have arisen in South American countries undergoing economic collapsed, such as Venezuela, to some degree, and Cuba in the 1990s following the collapse of the USSR.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-47160760

https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/news-and-politics/venezuelans-dying-failing-health-care-system

 All of the above medical writers believe that such a situation, or worse, could happen in the West, and the Covid lockdowns and restrictions, where many people are simply too afraid to go to a doctor, is an early warning sign. Two further books dealing with the survival/collapse medicine theme, are Gerard Doyle, Where There is No Doctor, (2010), and James Hubbard, The Survival Doctor’s Complete Handbook, (2016). Neither book intends to be as encyclopaedic as the above two first mentioned, but the focus is a bit different. The aim of both books is to introduce to untrained people the way of thinking in a problem-solving fashion for medical situations. Thus, Hubbard begins each chapter, organised around a medical theme with a hypothetical and a set of true or false questions. For example, one slips and falls and breaks one’s leg, but expert help is impossible to get. Rest it in traction, or splint it and start bearing weight as soon as possible? I answered is the former, which I got wrong.

Hubbard covers the topics of skin issues, broken bones and orthopaedics, altered states from concussion and strokes, bites and stings, facial injuries, cardio-vascular issues, breathing issues abdominal problems , women’s health, men’s health, children’s health and building up a survival medical supply, what one needs.

There are many interesting topics, but I particularly liked the discussion of paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, or fast heart rate. This is defined as a rate of over 100 beats per minute. It is sometimes found with panic attacks, but could just suddenly happen, and it is scary. Hubbard suggest various ways of dealing with it on one’s own, lacking drugs that can slow the heart beating down, such as beta-blockers. These include the Valsalva manoeuvre, holding one’s breath and bearing down to strain, which changes the pressure in the chest. An ice-cold water facial may also help. There is also a carotid manoeuvre, but this should be done by a doctor, since there is a danger of knocking off a blood clot in the neck causing a stroke, which is definitely worse than a fast heart rate!

Doyle’s book is also interesting, being more explicitly a collapse book. He has an opening chapter on how grid-down might occur, and the dire consequences for a population highly dependent upon Big Pharma and medical professionals. He thinks the very best thing that people can do now is to practice preventative medicine, by getting fit, stop consuming cigarettes, alcohol and recreational drugs, eating healthy and exercising. He then goes on to discuss various models of alternative health care, drawing upon Third World examples, as this gives a model of conditions where such austere medicine would be practiced. The book has fascinating blue boxes which depart from the main text, but discuss case studies, including medicine practiced in prisoner of war camps, where surgery was conducted by imprisoned surgeons using improvised instrument. Use was made of what herbs could be scrounged. There is an interesting discussion of fracture care at the end of the world, with no x-ray machines. The doctor should become skilled in the auscultation method, using a stethoscope to detect sound difference between the injured leg, and the normal leg.

Both of these books are well worth reading even if one does not purchase hard copies. They will get one thinking creatively and critically about medical problems. I believe that people need to better educate themselves about medicine and health, so as to not be helpless when misery strikes. And it will. As it is.