Modern medical care is largely dependent on complex pharmaceutical and medical equipment that will be impossible to create locally-with one exception: intravenous fluids. While we currently use pre-packaged, disposable iv access devices, tubing and fluids, these are a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1950's, IV fluids were prepared in our kitchen in a sauce pan on the stove, packaged in reusable glass bottles, administered via reusable heavy gage latex tubing through reusable, resharpened steel hypodermic needles. The old man was educated in 1935, when they taught folks how to roll their own pills out of leaves, roots and berries. And make their own IV fluids, in bottles sterilized much the same way as baby bottles and canning jars are currently treated. IV fluid therapy can support the patient until their their immune system can fight off the bugs. Childhood viral diarrhea is a common fatal illness of children in third world countries-and rarely fatal here. This is not because we have good drugs-it's a virus, antibiotics do not work on it-its the iv fluids we give the kids. Little ones dehydrate fast, and once dehydrated, everything stops working. The old man mixed normal saline by adding a teaspoon of salt to a quart of distilled water,; the patients never complained, and the all seemed to heal up. Please note: the patients were cows, the old man a veterinarian. I am not recommending this as an alternative to moden medical care, and this is not the sort of thing one would try at home. But in extremis, I would be tempted to try it.
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