Mark M: I will add a few more items in the next day or two. I've had a lot of discussions with nurses and physicians about wound treatment. The general opinion is that iodine is too aggressive on wounds, and tends to damage good tissue as well as infectious bacteria. So that is why I listed the options that I did. In the old days, when I was a boy, everybody used iodine. I hated it as a kid because it really stings, but let's face it - it does work. If you had nothing better, you could use iodine on mild cuts & wounds.

Isopropyl alcohol is an excellent thing to have in your "kit" or BOB. It's good for cleaning skin around wounds, and very good as a fuel for makeshift stoves.

dweste: In situations where there are a lot of people who are displaced from their homes, two things tend to go wrong. The first is that human fecal matter winds up getting into local water sources. People have diarrhea and they can't help polluting the water sources. If this gets bad, you wind up with outbreaks of cholera. Cholera kills people fast - esp. people who are run down due to exhaustion, dehydration, and hunger. Cholera shots are only partially effective. The best way to avoid cholera is to drink ONLY pure water, and to mix some oral rehydration salts (ORS). So it would be worthwhile to have the ingredients for ORS and the formula handy.

The second problem is that other communicable diseases can spread, due to the fact that you've got a lot of people living in very close proximity (colds/flu, diseases from ticks & fleas, etc.). So you have to decide how clean your local "refugee camp" really is ... before going there.

other Pete