Pros:
The writing style is clear and easy to read. And the treatments are written from the perspective of hospitals and advanced equipment not being available, which is what I'm looking for.
Cons:
The sections on the most common types of injuries (cuts, puncture wounds, infections, burns, food poisoning, etc) are too short. There's only so much space but...
The book spends too much time in my opinion on non-medical information, such as "how to protect a house from a forest fire" and stuff like that.
I think too much time is also spent on alternative remedies (eg. essential oils). I would guess that 1/3 of each treatments section is devoted to these. While I wouldn't mind a chapter or 2 listing alternative remedies that you might try if you don't have the standard medication (this is for the collapse after all). In my opinion there isn't enough scientific evidence for these treatments to spend so much time on them. They also often take the form of "here's a list of 10 essential oils that might help", and I'm sorry but that's just too vague.
Some useful information is missing. I'm not a medical expert, but I've had a few ailments over the years which I've read up on specifically, and when the book addressed these I felt like it skipped over a lot of useful info. For example, the section on heartburn doesn't include the fact that your stomach opens on the right, so laying on your left side can alleviate it. Or when lice treatments are discussed, they mention that the active ingredient is permethrin, but they don't mention that this is a commonly available pesticide. These are just a few examples.
I know the Authors needed to include a warning not to attempt these procedures if a real hospital is available. But I would have preferred that to be just in one place, instead of sprinkled throughout. Like yes obviously you should not pull someones teeth if there are real dentists around. Perhaps there could have been a chapter outlining what to do differently if a hospital *is* available.
One last thing. I think sometimes the level of technology you're assumed to have is *too* low. Lack of electricity is often assumed, as well as lack of almost all electronic equipment. I think this is a bit too pessimistic. Even with the grid down, generators, solar, etc could be used. And equipment like EKGs and other vital monitors could be obtained cheaply from china (for preparedness, not after a collapse obviously). It might even be possible to scavenge some of that stuff, who knows?
Overall I'd say this reference isn't bad, but it could be better. I bought the "FM 4-25.11 First Aid: Army First Aid Field Manual" as well, and this is much better than that in most ways. There are a few typos and formatting errors, which although not a big deal, indicate to me that the content wasn't heavily scrutinized.
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