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Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook
- howard941 8y agoCool free pdf. I bought a copy after I read about it in the Whole Earth Catalog many moons ago.
- thedaemon 8y agoThe PDF is not free.
- stuff4ben 8y agoThe individual chapters are. There's links on the website (https://hesperian.org/books-and-resources/ https://hesperian.org/books-and-resources/). They are a non-profit, so please support them too. I downloaded all of the PDF's and will be buying the book as well.
- thomble 8y agoI had a copy of this as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I can't ever forget the picture of the "cholera bed."
- exolymph 8y agoFor anyone else who was curious: http://notes-from-the-congo.blogspot.com/2009/09/cholera-bed.html http://notes-from-the-congo.blogspot.com/2009/09/cholera-bed... Variations: https://www.google.com/search?q=cholera+bed&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX48izkY_hAhXX_J4KHevKDU8Q_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=622&dpr=2#imgrc=POHdRjfcRNeTrM https://www.google.com/search?q=cholera+bed&source=lnms&tbm=...:
- icarito 8y agoGreat manual. I helped deliver two babies following this and the book for midwives. Fortunately haven't needed it for anything else!
- tomp 8y agoAlso see Where There Is No Dentist [1] and Where Women Have No Doctor [2]. [1] https://www.surviveuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Where-There-Is-No-Dentist.pdf https://www.surviveuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Where-T... [2] http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs12/Where_women_have_no_doctor-op200m-red.pdf http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs12/Where_women_have_no_docto...
- lasermike026 8y agoIn the future every familiar group with need at least one medic. We can make a better future that this.
- StevePerkins 8y agoOh wow, of all the random things to turn up! Years ago, I occupied by commute time by learning some Spanish with Pimsleur CD's. I'm nowhere near native, but got far enough along with it to take some continuing education classes at a local community college. I built up a small bookshelf of Spanish-language books, from various random sources. One of those books is "Donde No Hay Doctor". I thought it purely an obscure Spanish publication, and am ALMOST a bit disappointed to learn that it's a well-known book in numerous languages.
- patrickxb 8y agoI have this book even though I live in a major city. It's a great teaching manual and helps build up common sense to learn about what can be treated at home and what is serious.
- Waterluvian 8y agoTreated at home vs. serious is woefully undertaught. I had never been to the ER before a few months ago. I had an accident with a falling glass jar and sliced my finger open. I spent so many cycles doubting if this needed a hospital visit or if I just needed a bandage. I later asked the ER doctor and he said that I definitely needed to be here, but maybe a quarter of the people out there in the waiting area don't.
- ngngngng 8y agoI was in the 1/4th that didn't need to be there once. I was bit by a snake in an unfamiliar area. Having grown up in an area with deadly snakes, I assumed I needed treatment. The ER doctors laughed at me and told me that they don't have poisonous snakes in the area. Now I do a quick google search to check what snakes are in the area when traveling.
- arethuza 8y agoI was bitten by one of our cats a while back and assumed that I didn't need treatment. A couple of days later the wound didn't look to good and I wasn't feeling too well and I went to our local NHS "Minor Injury Unit" who rapidly redirected me to the full Accident & Emergency department where I was X-rayed and prepped for surgery within about 20 minutes! Was told I would be in hospital for at least a week - fortunately was out after only 3 days although I was getting intravenous antibiotics in both arms at once for a while. Turns out cat bites can be very nasty - I since spoke to a nurse who told me she knew someone who lost a leg to a domestic cat bite.
- reaperducer 8y agoCat Scratch Fever is more than just a mullet rock song. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-scratch_disease https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-scratch_disease
- aristophenes 8y agoI'm sure this book has saved many many lives and alleviated a lot of suffering. As a young man I was in a situation to need it, and used it to do a lot of things I wouldn't (and shouldn't) regularly be doing. If you are going to be somewhere out of reach of medical care this is a great thing to have with you, or to have at least read through if you can.
- neonate 8y agoWhat were the things you used it to do?
- aristophenes 8y agoNot surgery, not anything immediately life-saving or life-threatening, but enough things that I would feel uncomfortable discussing it with people that wouldn't understand the context.
- runjake 8y agoThe companion books, Where There Is No Dentist and When Women Have No Doctor, are also great. User tomp has linked to them in their comment. Another great book is the US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook. I have an ancient copy, but the following link looks to be it: https://www.amazon.com/Army-Special-Forces-Medical-Handbook/dp/0464861071 https://www.amazon.com/Army-Special-Forces-Medical-Handbook/... The Special Forces handbook has a wealth of field medicine for nearly every scenario from combat trauma to gynecology to dental care, as they and Civil Affairs personnel are out providing medical care to indigenous men, women, and children (when they aren't killing them). You can find free, legal PDF copies online with a little Googling. Preferably, get the most recent revision as I've been told it's been updated substantially since the IQ/AF wars. Edit: The title appears to have been updated to "Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook".
- selmat 8y ago[1] https://fas.org/irp/doddir/milmed/ https://fas.org/irp/doddir/milmed/
- runjake 8y agoKeep in mind that many of the manuals at this link are declared obsolete because of outdated medical practices such as sucking the poison out of snake bites and such. I would aim for guides published on or after circa 2008.
- ngngngng 8y ago> when they aren't killing them Refreshing to see this posted online, instead of the constant "Thanks for protecting our freeedoms!"
- bordercases 8y agoYou're hanging around the wrong circles.
- ngngngng 8y ago
- joelhaasnoot 8y agoLived in the middle of nowhere many moons ago and this was our doctor! As a teenager growing up I read this out of boredom and when all the other books we had were already read
- jfk13 8y agoWow, a blast from the past! I remember being introduced to this book back in 1985 when I first went out to work in fairly remote regions of South Asia. I wasn't directly involved in any sort of medical/health work, but this was an invaluable resource both for myself and to try and offer help to local people when no formal medical care was available. Delighted to see it is still being maintained and used.
- amingilani 8y agoPakistan? One of the translations is in Urdu, and Pakistan is the only country that speaks it. If so, I'm curious where in Pakistan. I live in Lahore, so I'm personally much better off in terms of healthcare.
- jfk13 8y agoPakistan, India, Nepal; visits to a few other nearby countries. Yes, I'm sure there's pretty good healthcare to be found in Lahore (although it may not be readily accessible to everyone?); similarly, when in Karachi we had AKUH (where a couple of my kids were born) available. It's a different story in rural Sindh, though, or in remote districts of Nepal where it's a day's hike to the nearest road, or among tribals in central India. Re Urdu: yes, Pakistan is the only country where it's the national language, but I also encountered it in Hyderabad (Deccan), where Urdu is widely used. It's even one of the official languages of several Indian states.
- amingilani 8y agoI actually didn't know Urdu was used as the official language of several Indian states. I wish I was taught that growing up. Thank you for telling me that. Re: access to healthcare, maybe. The situation has gotten better, or I like to believe it has, in Lahore. I'm, unfortunately, not too well aware because data on this sort of thing isn't readily available or widely discussed. We just got our federal RTI laws ratified.
- unmole 8y ago
- amingilani 8y agoThis is the first time I've ever run into a book with one of its few translations being Urdu! Wonderful to see that someone translated it, but it's unfortunate that the Urdu version is $33.95. At 4,756 PKR that's prohibitively expensive for people without access to a doctor to buy.
- teachrdan 8y agoYou're right that the list price is too high for individuals in developing countries to easily purchase. I believe the model is for a community clinic to purchase a copy, or for individuals to pool their money to buy a copy for their community. NGOs give away copies as well, with bulk purchases of the book being discounted.
- curiouslurker 8y agoI came cross this book some time in 1991 or 1992, growing up in a developing country. Not having access to or being able to afford Playboy or Hustler, it was popular among my early teenage friends because of the explicit pictures of the female anatomy!
- kylehotchkiss 8y agoI read this before going to Nepal for some NGO work a few years back. The premise of the book is that many, many things can be solved with clean water and sleep, and that's helped give me the confidence to explore deeper in parts of the world where there really aren't doctors. Also notable! Don't load people up with antibiotics that aren't needed since that's contributing to increasingly widespread antibiotic resistant bacteria issues. Read this if you've got a vacation to Southeast Asia planned because being told "avoid lemons" and "avoid cold drinks" and then being prescribed a pile of pills including antacids can be frustrating.
- Baeocystin 8y agoWe had this book in Laos in the late 70's. (Parents were US Diplomats, nearest real medical care was a plane flight to Bangkok.) The knowledge contained within 100% saved lives while we were there.
- spditner 8y agoA long time ago now, a friend worked on a partial translation of "Where Women Have No Doctor" into Farsi with a grant from Hesperian -- and one of the dilemmas they had was whether including (they did in the end) the more graphic pictures would help or hinder their efforts in distributing it. I wonder how much of a challenge literacy is in a place where no doctor can be found. She talked about doing an audio cassette version, but again, the pictures are a challenge there as well.
- 0wnt_U_B 8y agoNo back door means no LGBT? Interesting....
- giardini 8y agoMost books, and apparently this one, skip the nasty stuff: when and how to remove a hand, arm, or leg or how to treat (and I mean "remove bullets, sew up and heal") gunshot wounds, etc. They almost always say "get to a hospital" or "get to a doctor". It's as if all medical books available to the public are written by lawyers concerned about liability. I'd like a book that tells it straight - what you need to do when you're out of reach of civilization or not close enough or you can't trust civilization (e.g., you're in a war zone). I don't believe that I couldn't remove someone's arm if necessary. After all, one man removed his own arm once. But I'd feel more comfortable with some instructions and some warnings on the way. As it is, were something like that necessary I'm thrown back on my own judgement. Sure, odds are slim, but I like to have info available.
- Dowwie 8y agoThere's probably no electric there either so you had better buy a hard copy and not an ebook