p. 58 | Valuable Hints

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 20, 1863

Valuable Hints.

1. If a man faints place him flat on his back and let him alone.

2. If any poison is swallowed drink instantly half a glass of cool water, with a heaping tea-spoonful each of common salt and ground mustard stirred into it. This vomits as soon as it reaches the stomach: but for fear some of the poison may still remain swallow the white of one or two raw eggs, or drink a cup of strong coffee, these two being antidotes for a greater number of poisons than any other dozen articles known, with the advantage of their being always at hand. If not, halfpint of sweet oil, or lamp oil, or "drippings," or melted butter, or lard, are good substitutes, especially if they vomit quickly.

3. The best thing to stop the bleeding of a moderate cut instantly is to cover it profusely with cobweb, or flower and salt half and half.

4. If the blood comes from a wound by jets or spirts, be quick, or the man will be dead in a few minutes, because an artery is severed; tie a handkerchief loosely around near the part, between the wound and the heart; put a stick between the handkerchief and the skin, twist it round until the blood ceases to flow, and keep it there until the doctor comes. If in a position where a handkerchief cannot be used, press the thumb on a spot near the wound between the wound and the heart; increase the pressure until the bleeding ceases, but do not lesson that pressure for an instant until the physician arrives, so as to glue up the wound by the coagulation or hardening of the cooling blood.

5. If your clothes take fire, slide the hands down the dress, keeping them as close to the body as possible, at the same time sinking to the floor by bending the knees; this has a smothering effect on the flames. If not extinguished, or a great headway is gotten, lie down on the floor, roll over and over, or better, envelope yourself in a carpet, rug, bedcloth or any garment you can get hold of, always preferring woolen.

6. If a man asks you to go his security, say "No," and run; otherwise you may be enslaved for life, or

your wife and children may spend a weary existence in want, sickness and beggary.

7. If you find yourself in possession of a counterfeit note or coin, throw it into the fire on the instant; otherwise you may be tempted to pass it, and may pass it, to feel mean therefor as long as you live; then it may pass into some man's hands as mean as yourself, with a new perpetration of iniquity, the loss to fall eventually on some poor struggling widow, whose "all" it may be perchance.

8. Never laugh at the mishaps of any fellow-mortal.

9. The very instant you find yourself in a passion shut your mouth. This is one of the best precepts outside of inspiration.

10. The man who always exacts the last cent is always a mean man; there is no "evacuant" in all the "Materia Medica" efficient enough to "purge" him of his debasement; he is beyond druggery.

11. Never affect to be "plain" or "blunt;"] these are the synonyms of brutality and boorishness, such persons are constantly inflicting wounds which neither time nor medicine can ever heal.

12. Never be witty at another's expense. True generosity never dwelt in such a heart; it only wants the opportunity to become a cheat or a rogue.

13. If the body is tired, rest; if the brain is tired, sleep.—Hall's Journal of Health.