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Making Medicines With No Pharmacy: What Works and What Doesn't

For a household, or a village health worker, when no new medicines are being made and the old ones are running out: what you can make or use yourself, rated honestly. Most of what saves lives is plain: a drink of salt and sugar, lots of boiled water on a wound, sugar and honey, diluted bleach, soap and a pressure canner. Plant medicines help less than people hope, and a few kill. The books are in Medical\Medicinal-Plants (the WHO monographs on medicinal plants, Vols 1–4: the evidence, plant by plant), Medical\Where There Is No Doctor (WTND), Medical\Field-Care (the Joint Trauma System wound guidelines, JTS, and Dakin and Dunham's 1917 Handbook of Antiseptics), Medical\Medicines (MSF Essential Drugs) and Medical\Manuals-PDF; the old recipe books are in Southern-Oregon\Homestead-Skills. A line that no book backs says (rule of thumb). How medicines were first discovered and made in factories, for a community that wants to make them again one day: How antibiotics came to be.

Ratings: ✅ works (good evidence) · ⚠️ weak or uncertain · ⛔ dangerous.

The short version

• ✅ Diarrhea kills by drying people out, and the cure is a drink: 1 liter of clean water, ½ level teaspoon of salt and 8 level teaspoons of sugar, in sips every 5 minutes (WTND, p. 152).
• ✅ Wounds: wash them out with lots of boiled water and leave dirty ones open. A wound that oozes gets sugar or honey under a dry dressing, changed every day (JTS, p. 16).
• ✅ Weak bleach (Dakin's solution) washes infected wounds; strong bleach harms them. The recipe and strengths are below.
• ✅ A pressure canner is a sterilizer: tools on a rack above the water, 60 minutes (JTS, p. 18).
• ✅ Alcohol only on unbroken skin, and only at 60–80% (MSF, p. 654). Never into a wound (WTND, p. 84).
• ⚠️ Willow bark works, but weakly. A full day's dose puts about as much aspirin-like medicine in the blood as 87 mg of aspirin (WHO monographs vol 4, p. 318); one aspirin dose is 300 to 600 mg (WTND, p. 380).
• ⚠️ Most plant medicines have no clinical proof, and their strength changes from plant to plant. The few with proof are in the table below.
• ⛔ Never: mould "penicillin" by mouth or injection, foxglove, ergot, comfrey or arnica by mouth, poppy or opium, and never inject anything that was not made sterile.

⚠️ Before you give any dose

• The doses here are the doses printed in the library's books, for when no doctor or pharmacist can be reached. They are not a prescription. Where two books differ, both are shown; where no book gives a dose, this guide says so.
• Be sure of the plant. Foxglove leaves have been mistaken for comfrey, with deaths (Medical guide). Photograph it with the plant identifier under Tools, then check every feature in a book.
• A plant's strength is not fixed. Willow bark holds 0.5% to 10% of its active part, depending on the kind of willow (WHO vol 4, p. 312). Start at the low end of a dose and watch.
• Most plant doses are for adults. Many are not for pregnancy, breastfeeding or young children: read the last column of each table.
• Plants mix with medicines. St John's wort lowers the blood level of warfarin, digoxin, HIV medicines and others (WHO vol 2, pp. 163–164).
• Anything made at home goes by mouth or on the skin, never by injection: "It is more dangerous to inject medicine than to take it by mouth" (WTND, p. 65).
• Real medicines first for serious infections. For pneumonia, tetanus, typhoid, TB and fever after birth, "do not lose time trying to treat them first with home remedies only" (WTND, p. 1).
• Write down what you gave, how much, when, and what happened.

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Everything in this guide, rated

Listed from what saves the most lives.

What	For	Rating	More
Rehydration drink (salt, sugar, water)	Diarrhea, cholera, big burns	✅	Rehydration drink
Lots of boiled water to wash a wound	Stopping wound infection	✅	Wound care
Soap and water	Hands, skin, dirty wounds	✅	Wound care
Boiled salt water	Washing and covering wounds	✅	Wound care
Sugar or honey dressing	Oozing or infected wounds; honey on burns	✅	Wound care
Dakin's solution (weak bleach and baking soda)	Dirty and infected wounds	✅	Wound care
Hot compresses	Infected wounds, boils	✅	Wound care
Pressure canner or oven	Sterilizing tools and dressings	✅	Sterilizing
Alcohol, 60–80%	Skin before a needle; hands	✅ on skin, ⛔ in a wound	Alcohol
Iodine	Skin; a single wash of a small wound	✅ on skin, ⚠️ in a wound	Wound care
Boiling	Tools	⚠️ cleans, does not sterilize	Sterilizing
Maggots	Dead flesh in a wound, when nothing else is left	⚠️	Wound care
Willow bark	Pain, fever	⚠️ weak	Pain and fever
Plants proven for one use (valerian, chamomile, garlic, ginger, St John's wort, cranberry, feverfew, echinacea)	That one use	✅	Plants
Plants with tradition only (thyme, peppermint, elder flower, calendula, yarrow and others)	Mild complaints	⚠️	Plants
Home-made penicillin, foxglove, ergot, comfrey or arnica by mouth, poppy		⛔	Dangerous to try
Anything injected that was not made sterile		⛔	Dangerous to try

Why most home-made antibiotics fail

Penicillin was first found in a mould, so people try to grow their own on bread or fruit. It does not work, for four reasons:

• Wild moulds make very little, and a broth or a mouldy crust holds an amount no one can measure (rule of thumb). One adult course of penicillin is 250 to 500 mg four times a day for 10 days (WTND, p. 351): 10 to 20 grams of the pure drug.
• No dose, so no cure. Too little medicine fails, and the person is left to the infection (rule of thumb).
• Other moulds on the same food make poisons. Aflatoxins from moulds "can cause serious illness in animals and humans" (FDA Bad Bug Book, p. 231), and penicillin itself can cause allergic shock (WTND, p. 70).
• Never inject it. Germs that go in with a needle cause abscesses (WTND, p. 68), and nothing made in a kitchen is sterile enough to inject (rule of thumb).

Real antibiotics need a laboratory, a known strain and a way to measure and purify the drug. How that was done, and what a community would need to do it again: How antibiotics came to be. Until then, the wound care below, and the antibiotics you have, stored well and used only when needed (Medical guide), are what you have.

Rehydration drink: the cheapest life-saver

"Giving lots of liquids to a child with diarrhea is more important than any medicine" (WTND, p. 46). The signs of drying out and how to give it are in the Medical guide.

Recipe	In 1 liter of clean water	Book
Sugar drink ✅	½ level teaspoon of salt and 8 level teaspoons of sugar. Taste it before the sugar: "less salty than tears"	WTND, p. 152
WHO home recipe ✅	0.5 level teaspoon of salt and 6 level teaspoons of sugar	JTS burns, p. 7
Cereal drink ✅	½ teaspoon of salt and 8 heaping teaspoons (2 handfuls) of powdered rice or other cereal, boiled 5 to 7 minutes. It spoils in a few hours in hot weather	WTND, p. 152

• The books differ on sugar: 8 or 6 level teaspoons. Both use the same ½ teaspoon of salt.
• How much: sips every 5 minutes, day and night, until they pass urine as usual. "A large person needs 3 or more liters a day. A small child usually needs at least 1 liter a day." Keep giving it even if they vomit (WTND, p. 152).
• A teaspoon is 5 ml (WTND, p. 61). Keep salt, sugar and a set of level measuring spoons with the medicines (rule of thumb).
• Burns over a fifth of the body need the same drink by the clock: Field Care.

Wound care that prevents infection

How to stop bleeding, when to close a wound and when to leave it open, and bites: Field Care. This section is what you can make yourself to keep a wound clean.

Water, soap and salt water

• ✅ Lots of water does most of the work. Boil it 3 minutes and cool it to body heat; 1 to 3 liters for a small wound, 4 to 8 for a dirty one, 9 or more for a large dirty one (JTS, p. 4).
• ✅ Soap: wash the skin around the wound with soap and boiled water; put soap in the wound only if it is very dirty: "Soap helps clean but can damage the flesh" (WTND, p. 84). Making soap: Make-Do.
• ✅ Boiled salt water (saline): "add 1 teaspoon of salt to 2 cups of boiled water. Only use for 24 hours"; soak gauze in it to cover an infected wound (WWHND, p. 307). MSF uses only sterile salt water, not antiseptics, on a clean wound (MSF, p. 656).
• ✅ Hot compresses on an infected wound, "20 minutes 4 times a day", with the part raised (WTND, p. 88).
• ✅ Sterile dressings from cloth: "Wrap it in thick paper, seal it with tape, and bake it for 20 minutes in an oven", with a pan of water below so it doesn't char (WTND, p. 87). A dirty or wet bandage is worse than none (same page).

Honey and sugar dressings

✅ For a wound that oozes a lot or is infected. Honey and sugar draw water out of germs: honey's "high osmotic potential" and the peroxide it makes when diluted stop bacteria growing (FAO Bees, p. 119).

1. Rinse the wound with boiled salt water or the cleanest water you have.
2. Fill it with sugar, or spread honey over it.
3. Cover with a dry dressing.
4. Repeat every 24 hours (JTS, pp. 11, 16).

• How often, books differ: JTS changes it every 24 hours; WWHND cleans and redoes it "at least 2 more times each day", because sugar or honey that fills with liquid from the sore "will feed germs rather than kill them" (WWHND, p. 306). Change it as soon as it turns runny.
• If it works, carry on or go back to a plain dry dressing; if not, an antiseptic wash or more cutting away of dead flesh (JTS, p. 16).
• Burns: "Equal parts of honey and either ghee (clarified butter), or oil" poured over gauze; the honey keeps germs down and the oil keeps the gauze from sticking (ICRC War Surgery, p. 288). WTND puts a thin layer of honey on a burn (p. 96).
• Never feed honey to a baby under 1 year (infant botulism) (FDA Bad Bug Book, p. 108). Keeping bees for it: Bees.

A sugar or honey dressing for a wound that oozes (JTS, p. 16; WWHND, p. 306; a drawing made for this guide).

Dakin's solution: weak bleach for dirty wounds

✅ Weak bleach, buffered with baking soda, washes "large, very dirty, or infected wounds" and helps against fungal infection (JTS, p. 4). It also helps dissolve dead tissue (Dakin, p. 27).

The JTS recipe (p. 4):

1. 1 liter of water, sterile or boiled (and cooled).
2. 5 ml (1 teaspoon) of household bleach, 5.25%, unscented.
3. ½ teaspoon of baking soda (it can be left out if you have none).
4. Mix. "Once mixed, Dakin's solution can be stored."

Two strengths, and a muddle in the book:

• JTS washes wounds with 0.025% Dakin's, a strength that kills germs without harming the flesh (p. 4). Its recipe above already makes about that: 5 ml of 5.25% bleach in a liter is 0.026% (arithmetic), though the book calls it "half-strength". The same page then says to dilute it 1 to 10 again, which would make it ten times weaker. Use the recipe as it stands for washing wounds (rule of thumb).
• Dakin's own solution (1917) was 0.45 to 0.5%: not stronger than 0.5% "or irritation of the skin may be frequent", not weaker than 0.4% or it works less well, and "not kept longer than one week" (Dakin, p. 25). It works fast and is used up fast, so it was renewed often on a wound (p. 27).

Bleach today is stronger, and it weakens on the shelf. Read the label. Plain bleach "can lose up to half its strength after 6 months" (USU Food Storage, p. 16). The amounts below are the dilution rule (parts of water = bleach % ÷ % wanted − 1, MSF Cholera, p. 226) worked out per liter:

Bleach strength on the label	0.025% (JTS: washing wounds)	0.5% (Dakin 1917)
5.25%	5 ml (1 teaspoon) in 1 liter	95 ml in a liter of mix
6%	4 ml (a scant teaspoon)	80 ml
8.25%	3 ml (a little over ½ teaspoon)	60 ml

• Mix it fresh. MSF throws away any diluted antiseptic after 24 hours (MSF, p. 656); Dakin kept his a week at most; JTS gives no limit. Label the bottle with the strength and the date.
• Don't heat it above body heat (37 °C), and never mix it with alcohol or other antiseptics (Dakin, p. 27), and never with ammonia or vinegar (Sanitation).
• Never inject it: hypochlorite breaks up blood cells and "should not be injected intravenously" (Dakin, p. 27).
• It eats metal: not for sterilizing instruments (Dakin, p. 22).
• Stronger bleach mixes for floors, laundry and the sickroom: Sanitation.

The JTS recipe for washing wounds, and the amounts for other bleach strengths (JTS, p. 4; Dakin, p. 25; a drawing made for this guide).

Iodine and maggots

• Iodine ✅ on skin, ⚠️ in a wound. A 2.5% solution in 70% alcohol is enough for skin (Dakin, p. 70); MSF uses 10% povidone-iodine on skin and broken skin (MSF, p. 655). On a wound it is best as one quick application: repeated, it was "much too irritating" (Dakin, p. 70). WTND: "NEVER put alcohol, tincture of iodine, or Merthiolate directly into a wound" (p. 84).
• Maggots ⚠️, when a wound is badly infected, does not heal, there are no antibiotics and the dead flesh can't be cut away: the Army manual's steps are to expose the wound to flies for one day, cover it, check daily, and flush every maggot out with sterile water "when they have cleaned out all dead tissue and before they start on healthy tissue". "Increased pain and bright red blood in the wound" mean they have reached healthy flesh (FM 21-76, pp. 40–41). The Special Forces handbook keeps only 50 to 100 in the wound and keeps flies off the wound itself, letting them lay only on the skin at its edge (ST 31-91B, p. 177). Flies carry germs: it is a last resort (p. 177). Hospitals use maggots bred clean for the purpose (rule of thumb); Maggot therapy.

Antiseptics, alcohol and sterilizing

Alcohol: the strength that works

• ✅ 60 to 80% alcohol kills germs best; it is for unbroken skin, "not ... on mucous membranes or broken skin" (MSF, p. 654). Let it dry before the needle goes in (p. 656). Hand rub needs at least 60% (Make-Do).
• In 1917 most germs died "fairly readily" in 50% alcohol, much weaker or stronger worked less well, "while most spores are unaffected by alcohol of any strength" (Dakin, p. 72).
• Proof is twice the percent: 190 proof still holds at least 5% water (USDA Fuel Alcohol, p. 23). So 80-proof whiskey or vodka is 40%, too weak; 150 to 160 proof is right (arithmetic).
• Making it: in the US you need a federal permit before you distill any alcohol, whether to drink, to sell or for fuel; the book names experimental and commercial permits for fuel alcohol (USDA Fuel Alcohol, p. IV-2). Today the permits come from the TTB, which still issues one for fuel alcohol (rule of thumb). Fuel alcohol is denatured "to render it unfit for human consumption" (DOE E85 Handbook, p. 9): never drink it or give it as medicine. How a still works: Fuel.

Soap, boiling and an oven

• ✅ Soap and scrubbing come first: tools are scrubbed with soap and water before any sterilizing (JTS, p. 17).
• ⚠️ Boiling cleans but does not sterilize: boiling water does "not sterilize instruments" (WHO Decontamination, p. 114). WTND boils a needle and thread 20 minutes to stitch a cut (p. 86): better than nothing.
• ✅ Dry heat in an oven: 180 °C (356 °F) for 30 minutes, 170 °C (338 °F) 1 hour, 160 °C (320 °F) 2 hours; wrap tools in foil and let them cool in the oven (JTS, p. 18).

A pressure canner as a sterilizer

✅ Steam under pressure is "the preferred sterilization technique" (JTS, p. 17). Steam sterilizes at 121 °C (250 °F) in 30 minutes; in a pressure cooker of unknown temperature, JTS gives 60 minutes, with the tools on a wire rack so "only steam" touches them (pp. 17–18).

1. Scrub the tools with soap and water. Wrap them, or the dressings, in cloth or paper (rule of thumb).
2. Water below the rack: JTS's field sterilizer uses ¾ to 1 inch of water (p. 17). For a full hour put in more, and raise the rack so nothing sits in the water (rule of thumb).
3. Vent steam for 10 minutes before closing the vent: trapped air lowers the heat (USDA canning guide, p. 1-20).
4. Put the weight on and keep the pressure 60 minutes. JTS starts the hour when steam first vents; counting from full pressure is the safer reading (rule of thumb). A canner at 10.5 pounds is at 240 °F at sea level (USDA, p. 1-19); use the 15-pound weight to reach about 250 °F (rule of thumb). Here, at about 1,300 feet, a canner already runs a little cooler than at sea level (PNW 421, p. 12): use the 15-pound weight, never less, for the full 60 minutes (rule of thumb).
5. Cool it off the heat, open it, and keep the packs wrapped until used (rule of thumb).

A canner kept for this, and dressings sterilized ahead in sealed packs, are worth having now (Field Care).

Tools on a rack in steam, not in the water (JTS, pp. 17–18; USDA, p. 1-20; a drawing made for this guide).

Pain and fever

Without medicine first: for a high fever take off the covers and clothing (WTND, p. 8) and soak the body with water; for a sprain, cold water the first day and hot soaks after; hot compresses for stiff, sore muscles and joints (WTND, pp. 47–48). Drink plenty, and rest.

Willow bark ⚠️

"Is it true that tea made from willow bark will help bring fever down and stop pain? True. It helps" (WTND, p. 8). The WHO monograph lists clinical evidence for "fever and pain, and ... mild rheumatic conditions" (vol 4, p. 312).

	What the books give
Dose (adult)	"6–12 g of powdered drug material as a decoction (corresponding to 120–240 mg of total salicin) in two divided doses" a day (WHO vol 4, p. 320). The Air Force handbook boils "eight to ten six-inch stalks in two cups of water until water turns into tea" (AFH 10-644, p. 51), with no weight
Strength	Salicin, the aspirin-like part, runs from 0.5–1% in white willow to 2–10% in crack willow (WHO vol 4, p. 312). No book gives it for the willows growing near you
How strong	240 mg of salicin gave the blood about as much salicylate as 87 mg of aspirin (WHO vol 4, p. 318). In one trial in rheumatoid arthritis it did no better than a dummy pill (same page)
Don't use if	Allergic to aspirin, or asthma from it; pregnant or breastfeeding; bleeding problems; under 12, because of Reye's syndrome (WHO vol 4, pp. 318–319); on blood thinners (p. 319)

So willow takes the edge off a fever or an aching joint; it does not replace a stored bottle of aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen (doses: Chronic illness). The monograph's bark is from young branches (WHO vol 4, p. 309).

Other pain helpers

What	Rating	What the books say
Feverfew to prevent migraine	✅	Clinical evidence for "Prevention of migraine" (WHO vol 2, p. 320). The dose is given only as 0.2–0.6 mg of parthenolide a day (p. 325), which can't be measured at home: no book gives a number of leaves. Not in pregnancy (p. 324); mouth ulcers mean stop (p. 325)
Peppermint oil rubbed on for a headache	✅	Clinical evidence "Externally for treatment of myalgia and headache", as 5–20% oil in a cream or oil (WHO vol 2, pp. 190, 195). Never on a baby's or small child's face (p. 194)
Oil of cloves for tooth pain	⚠️	Dentists soak a bit of cotton in it, "damp but not wet", for a painful socket (Where There Is No Dentist, p. 117). WHO lists toothache under tradition, not trials (vol 2, p. 48)
Arnica on bruises and sprains	⚠️ outside, ⛔ by mouth	Outside only, never on broken skin; "A fatal case of poisoning following the ingestion of 70.0 g of a tincture" (WHO vol 3, p. 83)

Opioids: no ⛔

Poppy and opium preparations are illegal to make in the US, and no one can know their strength at home (rule of thumb). With all of them, from opium to morphine, "Respiratory depression is the most dangerous and can be fatal" (Ship's Medicine Chest, p. 113). This guide gives no way to make them. Morphine from a pharmacy, and its doses: Chronic illness.

⛔ Dangerous to try

Don't	Why
Mould "penicillin", by mouth or injected	No dose, other moulds' poisons, allergic shock (above)
Foxglove (digitalis) for the heart	Its heart poisons stay "active in the fresh, dried, or even boiled plant" (WSU Poisonous Plants, p. 28). Its medicine, digoxin, is kept at 0.8–2 micrograms per liter of blood, checked by a laboratory, and poisoning becomes likely from 1.5 to 3 (WHO Formulary for Children, p. 336): a margin no leaf can be measured to
Ergot (the dark fungus on rye and grasses)	Ergot in hay poisons animals: a cow loses the skin and flesh in a ring round the lower leg, down to the bone (USDA Diseases of Cattle, p. 50). The medicine made from it, ergometrine, "Used the wrong way before the baby is born, they can cause the death of the mother or the child in her womb" (WTND, p. 266). Never eat grain with ergot in it
Comfrey by mouth (tea, syrup, leaves)	It harms the liver; death "may ensue from 2 weeks to more than 2 years after poisoning", and in 2001 the FDA told makers to take comfrey products meant to be swallowed off the market (FDA Bad Bug Book, p. 243)
Arnica by mouth	A death from 70 g of tincture (WHO vol 3, p. 83)
Angel's trumpet, jimsonweed and other poisonous nightshades	WTND gives drops of angel's trumpet for cramps but warns it "is very poisonous if you take more than the recommended dose" (p. 12); of jimsonweed "all parts of the plant are toxic" (WSU, p. 30). A home soak's strength can't be known (rule of thumb)
Poppy and opium	Illegal, and no way to know the dose; overdose stops the breathing (Ship's, p. 113)
Anything injected that was not made sterile	Abscess, fever, allergic shock (WTND, pp. 68–70); bleach in a vein destroys blood (Dakin, p. 27)
Alcohol, iodine tincture or strong bleach poured into a wound	Alcohol and tincture of iodine "damage the flesh and make healing slower" (WTND, p. 84); Dakin kept his bleach at 0.5% or weaker, because stronger irritates (p. 25)

The deadly ones here:

• Foxglove is "a common garden flower and sometimes a wild escapee" (WSU, p. 28); its leaves have been mistaken for comfrey (Medical guide).
• Western waterhemlock grows "in wet places along streams, irrigation ditches, and sloughs", the same places as willows; it "is the most poisonous plant in North America" (PNW 109, p. 1). Never use a wild carrot-family plant (angelica, lovage, wild parsnip) as medicine (rule of thumb).
• Pacific yew grows in moist old forest and canyon bottoms; its bark is harvested for medicine (USFS, p. 115), but yew poisoning can kill so fast "that signs of poisoning may not have time to develop", and "Survival is rare" (AIB 415, p. 113). Never make a tea of any yew (rule of thumb).
• Tansy ragwort "infests woodlands, pastures, and hayfields of the coastal northwest" and carries the same kind of liver poison as comfrey (pyrrolizidine alkaloids); animals die months after eating it (AIB 415, pp. 105–106). Never use it as a medicine (rule of thumb).

⚠️ Old advice in the library to ignore

Book says	Do this instead
Rinse a wound with "fresh urine if water is not available" (FM 21-76, p. 40); urine "may well be the most nearly sterile of all fluids" (AFH 10-644, p. 51)	The cleanest water you have, boiled 3 minutes and cooled (JTS, p. 4)
For worms: "Kerosene. Drink 2 tablespoons", or "Eat 1 to 1 1/2 cigarettes" (ST 31-91B, p. 177)	Never drink fuel or eat tobacco (rule of thumb). Worm medicines and their doses: WTND, p. 375; for pinworms, garlic may help (WTND, p. 12)
For diarrhea, eat "white clay or campfire ashes" (FM 21-76, p. 128), or powdered chalk, charcoal or dried bones (ST 31-91B, p. 176)	The rehydration drink: "if enough liquid is given, no medicine is usually needed" (WTND, p. 46)
"Fuller's Cough Syrup": comfrey root and plantain juice boiled with sugar, "1 to 2 tablespoonsful 3 or 4 times per day" (Lee's, p. 44)	No comfrey by mouth (FDA Bad Bug Book, p. 243). For a cough, a thyme tea (WHO vol 1, p. 264)
Arnica tincture by mouth, "10 to 30 drops", "in diarrhoea, dysentery, gout" (Lee's, p. 46)	"Internal use of Flos Arnicae ... is not recommended. For external use only" (WHO vol 3, p. 83)
For toothache, a paste of opium, henbane and belladonna, or carbolic acid in the tooth (Household Discoveries, p. 503)	Oil of cloves on cotton (Where There Is No Dentist, p. 117), and aspirin or paracetamol
Ointments of mercury, lead plaster or "red precipitate" (a mercury salt) for skin trouble (Henley's, p. 488; Lee's, p. 55)	Soap and water; keep the skin clean, dry and in the sun (FM 21-76, p. 41)
"Honey can be regarded as a good food for both infants and adults" (USDA AH 335 (1980), p. 88)	"Children under 1 year old should never be fed honey" (FDA Bad Bug Book, p. 108)
Dakin's solution "can be stored", diluted once more 1 to 10 (JTS, p. 4)	Make it fresh, at the strength in the table above (Dakin's solution)

Pictures & diagrams

🖼️ = drawings in the books on this drive; the plain links open photos in the offline Wikipedia.

• Rehydration drink: mixing it — WTND, p. 152; Oral rehydration therapy
• Wounds: cleaning a cut and bandages — WTND, pp. 84–87; hot compress and soaking an infected wound — WWHND, p. 307; washing out a dirty wound — ICRC War Surgery, p. 215; Maggot therapy; Honey
• Sterilizing: the field sterilizer and a pressure cooker, step by step — JTS, pp. 17–18; a pressure canner's parts — PNW 421; Autoclave; Pressure cooker
• Proven plants: Valerian; Chamomile; Feverfew; St John's wort; Cascara; Echinacea; Willow bark; White willow
• Tradition plants: Thyme; Peppermint; Lemon balm; Elder; Calendula; Yarrow; Bearberry; Hops; Lavender
• Dangerous plants: foxglove — WSU, p. 28, Foxglove; jimsonweed — WSU, p. 30, Jimsonweed; ergot — USDA Diseases of Cattle, p. 50, Ergot; Comfrey; Arnica; Brugmansia

Related guides

• Medical books & found medicines — the rehydration drink, found and expired medicines, medicinal plants to go carefully with
• How antibiotics came to be — how antibiotics, insulin and other medicines were discovered and made, for a community that wants to make them again
• Chronic illness when the pharmacy is empty — "Making a supply last", pain medicines and their doses, daily medicines that must not stop suddenly
• Field Care — "Wounds and infection when there's no hospital", "Burns", "The kit to build now"
• Sanitation — "Chlorine strengths from household bleach", "Handwashing and water for hygiene"
• Make-Do Household — "Soap from fat and ashes", "Cleaning and disinfecting"
• Bees — honey and beeswax for dressings and salves
• Plant identifier — check a plant before you pick it