MEDICAL MONDAY: Bacteria, Blisters & Baking Soda The Survival Medicine Hour

It's in the world as we know it that you. That we start with the twigs first. Stick to aerow plane any roots not. Afraid, I have a beteam. It's a deer chums world and it don't need some me to your own night tweeted, I'm no kind of. With the beer fight, down fire, in the plan, the seven gangs, the government rehirement, the combat tag. But what's coming in or down your nest? The supporter coup, the problems with that bow plane fine. And fall over ball put the corner of the wide. See world to your hunt. Tell me what the recommend the right gott hat a plan fight right Mike two. Twenty side fifty. And the world as we know it? O the world as we know it, the world as we know it des Welcome to the doom and Blue with medical preparedness experts, Doctor Bones and Nurse Amy your source for information on how to succeed if everything else fails, and now your hosts man, doctor Bones and Nurse Amy, the alternative. The world know it. In the dark heart of the city, a mysterious figure no as doctor. Bones, Safe and sound in good times or bad, Friends and neighbors, if you've been injured in an accident with a pernicious parrot. Pernicious means harmful in a subtle or gradual way, and our parrot has perniciously driven us crazy over the last thirty years or so, had occasionally given us a less pernicious injury by giving us a nice bite on the finger here and there. In any case, our attorney says, don't call us called doctor Bones in Nurse Me and listen to this. Any information given add opinions voiced on Doctor Bones in Nurseamy's Survival Medicine Hour are for entertainment purposes only. They do not represent medical advice or anything other than post apocalyptic settings. Doctor Bones and Nurseamy strongly urged their audience to seek modern and standard medical care whenever and wherever it is available. Don't listen to a thing we say. In other words, you know, we haven't really talked too much about wildfires this year's matter of fact, we haven't talked at all about them, which makes me think that there's been a relatively quiet time. But through truthfully, there have been wildfires the whole time, and they're still going on even further into the season than well then historically they usually do. There's a wind driven fire that began near Silmar, California, and prompted evacuation orders for the entire community of Granada Hills and Porter Ranch in California just today actually, and it continues to burn into its third day, escort seventy five hundred acres. Of course, they're dropping the bucket compared to some of the fires last year, but it's still just about nineteen percent contained. According to the latest official report, there have been. Mandatory evacuations twenty thousand homes one hundred thousand people. Some evacuations have been lifted into some areas, and other evacuations are being added as well. I guess the fire moves on to whatever course it's going to take. Some residents are being allowed to briefly return home to gather belongings, but tens of thousands of North Valley residents and Porter Ranch are still waiting to sleep in their own beds again. The Los Angeles Fire Department officials say that there are thirty one structures, including homes, that have been destroyed or damaged by the blaze, and indeed, one man into cardiac arrestorer's unite and died at a local hospital. Hard to say whether it was his time or whether just the stress of seeing his home burning to the ground caused him to have a heart attack. That's a good question. Really. I'll tell you that if I was watching. My home burn during the Gatlinburg fire, thank goodness it was spared that, but all the hundreds of homes that went up in flames where we are, I'll tell you it probably would have given me a heart attack too at this age. Well, so all I can say is our prayers and wishes go out to the folks in California that are suffering from the fires and other people, and I probably will have a show I think, unfortunately, before the end of the year on wildfires. More in general, you know, with hurricanes and tornadoes and all sorts of exciting things that happened in the United States, the lightning capital of the world. As a matter of fact, you would think that we have more than our share of natural disasters. But boy, I'll tell you, Japan is in one. Of those situations as well. Not only do they have a powerful typhoon pounding Tokyo today, but they also had an earthquake of a magnitude five point three centered. Just off the coast of Tokyo. So there are incredible things that happen all over the world, and I just can't imagine anything worse than having a hurricane in the midst of an earthquake. There's flooding in Tokyo, rivers of swowed boats, of flipped mudslide warnings, just all sorts of crazy things that are occurring there. So how you're lucky stars that you are not in Japan today. Speaking of hiking, I really want to talk about getting out in the back country and hiking trails. What are some of the pitfalls that you're going to experience and how could you possibly avoid them. You're going to be on rough terrain, You're gonna be on gradient terrain. You're gonna be going uphill downhill, probably both during your journey. And this can be a major issue. Now this is not just for backcountry camping, but also in survival settings. Maybe you have to hit the road and maybe after a period of time, you have to be on foot. I think that anyone. Who's ever done any hiking has had to deal with blisters. Maybe you bought the wrong pair of shoes, maybe you made other poor choices that caused you to get blisters. Maybe not rested when you needed to, maybe taking a trail that was a little rougher than maybe it should have been caused friction. Who knows. All I can say is that for a pretty small soft tissue injury, I'm sure you'll agree out there that a blister can cause more than its share of problems. I'll say that more than one hike has come to a screeching halt because the terrain was just more rugged than expected, and sure enough the footwear could not handle it, and therefore the foot inside the footwear couldn't handle it. Never underestimate the importance of a properly fitted pair of shoes. Shoe size changes as you age. It also, believe it or not, during and after a pregnancy. I'll bet a lot of you ladies out there that have had babies have noticed that your foot size may have permanently changed half a size or so. It even changes temporarily as the course of the day wears on. That's why you should always try new shoes after a day of walking on your feet are a little bit swollen. Most of us have one foot that's a little bigger than the other. Make sure that your boots fit both feet, but especially the larger one. Don't just put on one boot and say I'll take these. You're gonna be hopping on one leg and you know what happened to the one legged man at the ass kicking contest. Each part of. Your foot should be comfortable in your new boots. The ball of your foot should fit the widest part of the shoe without any pressure. There should be about a half an inch or so from the end of your toes to the end of your shoe. The upper part of the shoe that should be flexible enough to not cause discomfort on your instep. That's a part of the person's foot on top, between the ball the foot and the ankle. Everybody's instep is built a little bit differently, maybe more arched, less arched, so it's important to get the right shoe. Now, this is important. Your heel should not slip up and down when you walk, guaranteed to give you a blister on the back of your heel. So that's something it's very important. Make sure that you have your shoelaces tied to the point that you're not doing that, You're not having your feet do that in the shoe Now other considerations are important. Soles that are going to take a lot of punishment on the trail, they should be like Vibram or other really sturdy material. High top boots. Those can help prevent ankle sprains by giving more support, help prevent against that rare snake bite that you might encounter. It's getting a little late in the year for ticks. Not impossible, though, so consider tucking your pants in your boots if you're gonna be brushing up against a lot of tall grass or maybe brush on the trail. Now, don't buy shoes that are too tight and expect them to stretch. A lot of people say, oh, well, yeah, I'll wear them for a while, then they'll stretch to fit my foot. That doesn't mean they won't. But you go through a lot of discomfort to get you there, and especially if you're in a situation where you can't change into a different pair. You're on the road. Things have gone downhill, things have gone south, and you have to hit the road. You just have to have the right pair of shoes. Now, many people buy shoes online. My lovely wife Amy does that a lot. But you should really walk in a shoe for a while. Before you buy it, at least fifteen minutes. I would think before making a purchase, just walk all round the store, stand in different positions. You know. Basically, this is what I think you should do before you make that purchase. I'm often asked what brand is best and that you know, honestly, I think it depends on you. Your feet are shaped differently than the next guy. So your feet are shaped differently in mind, why should my brand of shoes necessarily be the best for you? Absolutely no way. You can tell that. You've just got to try on the shoes and see what happens. Now. One thing about heavier boots, such as those with steel toes. They're great if you're chopping wood. You get to keep all ten of your toes. But surprise, surprise, they're heavy. Remember that extra pounds aweight in your boot. It's about five extra pounds a weight on your back, pretty much like that, and you gotta somehow decrease the weight of the shoe. Getting soft, flexible uppers will help, and that will decrease the weight while still keeping maybe thick vibram soles so that you are able to have the protection you need for your foot itself. In wet climates, waterproof materials like gortex used in ski clothes, those are actually a pretty good investment. I think. Now unless you can count shoemaker as one of your survival skills, by a spare pair or two before a disaster happens, wear each of them a few times as well, break them in. I think that's good preper advice. No charge. By the way, Another factor in keeping your feet healthy, that's your socks. Most people hiking the same pair of socks all day, even in the heat of summer. But sweaty feet are unhappy feed and wetness increases friction, gives you blisters on the trail. It's important to change wet socks. Have replacement pairs in your backpack. That is really really important. For added protection, you might consider wearing two pairs of socks, use a second pair inside an inner pair they call them sometimes sock liners, and put that under thicker hiking socks. And if you do that then you'll have a little less issue. I think with blisters, use foot powders like gold Bond. Those are really good. We have them in a number of our kits that stored out Boom and bloom dot Net even cornstarch that would help your feet stay dry. No matter what, though, there's always a chance then a long arduous hike is going to cause blisters. If you've hiked a few trails, you know they're walking over roots on an incline. That's a lot different than traveling on a paved trail. It's important to recognize trouble areas early on your feet before. They become real trouble. If a blister is just starting, it'll look like a tender red area that we call a hotspot where the friction is worse. That is where that hot spot is going to occur. Cover this area with moleskin or Spendco's second skin before it gets to become a blister. These items are inexpensive. You don't have any of these on hand. You can always make use of gauze or band aid, duct tape. Lots of improvisations that may help protect against blister formation. The important thing. Here is ad padding to prevent further friction. Blisters do happen, however, and some people, well they're eager to pop them right away. This should not be done, I think with small blisters, as it makes little difference in terms of comfort or discomfort and could. Lead to infection. Consider that skin over a blister can serve as a kind of dressing a sterile one if it's intact. Large blisters, they are different. They pop very easily anyhow, saying you want to control how that's going to happen, and so this is what I want you to do. Want you to clean the area with disinfect in, alcohol, iodine, hippocleans, anything like that would be useful. I'm not too picky with regards to that. Then I want you to take a needle and sterilize it either with alcohol or heat it until it's red hot, and then pierce the absolute side of the blister, right at the border, not the top. And what that does allows the fluid to drain out, but keeps the protective skin code or coating on top of the raw skin that's underneath the blister itself. That's gonna ease some discomfort, it's. Going to allow healing to begin. You want to preserve any loose skin that's there to preserve the raw area. Basically, that's what you're doing. Cover the blister, to apply protection, apply anaboutic cream, things like that, if. You have it, I think that would be very useful. Now, if you have your moleskin or second skin, cut a hole in the middle a little bigger than the blisters moleskin especially that pertains to Then you place the moleskin on so the blister is in the middle of the opening of the moleskin of the hole that you cut in the moleskin, and then cover the whole thing with the gauze pad or some other kind of bandage. Now, of course, it would be great if you could rest, If you could rest, if at all possible, that would give you time to heal a little bit. But in a lot of situations you absolutely are just going to have to keep walking. If that's the case, make sure your bandage is stop the friction to the area, and that will be obvious with regards to the comfort or discomfort your experience. Remember that bandage is frequently cut off, so check it from time to time. Make sure it's still on. Change a bandage. Frequently as needed to keep it clean. If a blister is continuously exposed to friction, sometimes there's a chance that can actually turn into a foot alcer. A foot alcer winds up going right through the dirt, can go right through the dermissing, and it's a shallow, reddish crater that involves well surface skin in some cases, or goes deep into the dermis the deeper layer of the skin in others. And it can even go down and involve deep structures as well, even tendons, things like that if it's bad enough. Diabetics especially need to be careful because they're more succeptible to foot problems due to poor circulation and nerve damage from the disease process itself. Many home remedies for blisters exist to speed healing and prevent infection. They include cold salt water compresses, tannic acid solution about ten percent would do, a few drops of listerine. Actually you can serve as an aseptic. Garlic oil, alo vera be very useful, vitamin E oil, also zinc oxide ointment. Some people have used which hazel tea tree oil, lavender oil, all sorts of different ways that you can speed healing and hope fully prevent infection in a blister area. Blisters aren't the only problem, though. Being out in the woods or working with wood not uncommonly leaves a person with a splinter or two to deal with. You might see it pretty easily if it's big enough. On a magnifying glass sometimes will help you visualize it a little better. A number of our kids carry those by the way, just for that purpose. Here's the best way to get rid of it. Wash the affected area before you begin removing a splinter. You gotta wash your. Hands too, and not only the skin around the splinter. You gotta wash your hands, and it's best to do it with warm water and soap if you can for at least twenty seconds. They say to sing happy birthday song, the happy birthday song twice. Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday, dear listener, Happy Birthday to you. They do that twice, and that is considered to be enough washing. This can minimize the risk of spreading infection, and that is something that will avoid bacterial problems. Dry your hands then, and the area around the splinter pretty well before you try to remove it. You might want to have tweezers on hand to grab it, maybe in a number or eleven scalpel if the skin has grown. Over the foreign object. We have a lot of kids to have that too. Sterilize your tweezers with alcohol, boiling or heat. Source to reduce your risk of infection or any bacteria that can spread inside the wound. Now, if you have bacteria in the wound, it can cause an infection. That's why you have to do your best to avoid that, and any instrument you have should be as clean. Or sterilized as possible. We talk about wound infections a lot, by the way, in our book The Survival Medicine Handbook, and also our new book, Alton's Antibiotics and Infectious Disease Shameless plug there. Sorry, use a magnifying glass in good lighting. If you have to break the skin, you want to cut superficially, just enough to expose the tip of the fragment. Then you squeeze behind round to the splinter and make it more accessible. Then you take your tweezers, grab the end of the splinter and pull it out along the angle that you think it entered the skin. Don't forget to wash area thoroughly before and after the procedure. It's unlikely that a major infection will come from simply having a splinter, with the exception of those that have been under the skin for more. In a few days, redness or swelling that's going to become apparent. If an infection is indeed brewing, you might consider antibiotics. If you see redness, it seems to be spreading over time. That's luckily a very rare circumstance. With splinters, though, another way get some tape. Fragile splinters, such as those from plants or fiberglass. Oftentimes they respond better to removal with tape. You can use many different types of tape for this procedure, masking tape, duct tape, electrical tape. They only need a tiny piece. Apply it to the sprinter site splinter site and press firmly to make a stick to the splinter. Make sure that you don't press splinter deeper into your skin as you do this, though, apply pressure out and away from the entry point as you are removing the tape, and hopefully the splinter will come with it. Some people also apply glue to the splinter. If you have something like Elmer's Glue White, the usual white school glue that can remove a splinter, Just apply a layer glue to the splinter itself and surrounding area. Make sure the glue is thick enough to fully cover the splinter. Don't use super glue for this this. Super glue is useful for a. Lot of things, but not for this Because super glue may not come off off of your skin. You might wind up being stuck with the superglue there and trap the. Splinter in place instead of removing it. You can also try using a wax hair remover or those wax strips the same way that you would use glue. You wash your hands, dry your hands around the area before you begin. Once it's applied, you allow the glue to. Dry completely completely before you can remove it, or it may not stick to the splinter. Leave the glue on your I'd say thirty minutes, maybe an hour, and then check it down then to see if it's dry. Once the glue is completely dry, shouldn't feel tacky or wet. Peel it away, and after you're certain the glue is dry, you grasp the edge of the glue, pull it in the direction that the splinter entered your skin, slowly and evenly, and as you pull it the glue over your splinter. The splinter indeed should come out. Then you squeeze the womb gently. When you successfully remove the splinter, you squeeze it until you see a little blood and this will help get some of the germs from the splinter out of your wound. Wash your hands again, don't squeeze too hard. By the way, Hey, if the b woon doesn't believe with some general pressure, just leave it alone. You could use other methods to clean it away. Germs and bacteria and antibacterial ointments are helpful for that. Also, flushing the moon out with warm water for a few seconds at least will help clean the area. Hey, I don't think there's one person out there that is looking for some kind of disaster occur that would wind up making them the highest medical resource for their family. But in times of trouble, well, you know it pays to have. A little medical knowledge and training. You got to show the world that you got more sense than a drawer full of donuts and get that training, that education that you need. Hopefully we're trying to provide some of that. Here are our website on our YouTube channels. But while you're at it, how about getting a quality medical kid as well. You need that. If you're going to function, you've got to have a screwdriver. If you want to drive in a screw you're not going to be able to do it. As well with a stake knife. So you got to have the right equipment, and there's no better place to get that equipment, either in individual supplies or in quality medical kits than Nurse Amy's entire line have often imitated, I'll say never equaled medical kids at store dot Doom and bloom dot net. Compare our kits for content, quality and cost with anybody else's stuff, and you'll agree our kits are the ones that you should have in your medical storage. If you just want some proof, well, just check out our testimonial page has stored out Doom and bloom dot net. See what folks just like you have to say about our medical kits. And personalized service. On top of all that, our kits are approved for your health or flexible savings accounts. Just look at our special HSAFSA section. In the store. And if you want to keep tabs on all of our articles, all of our content, all of our videos, don't forget to subscribe to our website at doom and boom dot net, and you know what, you get special bonuses. We add special discount codes to each newsletter that will give you a special offer on various types of kits, various types of individual materials and sometimes just a general percentage off of any kind of materials that you get at our store. So make sure that you subscribe to our website. You'd be doing us a favor, and you know what, I think you'll be doing your family a favor too. Got an idea for a show topic, or just want to ask the cranky old man or the pretty young lady a question, Well don't you wait, Nate, send us an email or sign up disconnect with us in these ways. Of course, you can always email the Lovely Nurse Amy at Dr Bones Podcast at aol dot com and ask her questions about our products or anything else. I also get to see those as well. You can follow us on Twitter at Prepper Show. We hope that you would do that. The YouTube channel is called Dr Bones Nurse Samey's Channel. We have quite a few people that are following us on that. Of course, Facebook, we have a number of different pages. Doom and Bloom is one. We have a. Survival Medicine group, Survival Medicine Group Doctor Bones Nurse Amy, Dr Bones Nurse Amy, and of course you can friend me personally and Amy personally at our personal page. Joe Alton if you support our mission to put a medically prepared person in every family, you can support us by well just connecting with us in one of these. Ways, and we believe me, appreciate it, and bless you for it. Thank you. Hey. You know, I am absolutely sure that there are people out there listening to this show that are concerned about the possibility of some kind of long term event that's going to make them the medical resource for their family. Maybe long term, and. Let's hope that it doesn't happen, but some people feel that it might happen in the near future and are doing all of this great stuff stockpiling medicines and stockpiling medical supplies so that they can handle injuries and illness in times of trouble. That is wonderful, but you have to think about this. If something happens that is a long time event, a true long term event, well, no matter how much stuff that you've accumulated over the course of time, that stuff is gonna run out. And that have you thought of that that your materials that you have, all that stuff could run out over the course of a few months, gosh, a few years, probably almost everything, I would guess, And so you have to be able to improvise, and you have to be able to use common household items that you might find, let's say, in your own storage or in abandoned homes. Things like that that you might be able to use. Let's say you got water, you got food, you can start a campfire, you got your knife or knives you've provided for the common defense. You get sterilized water, you got your vehicle ready for the road if you need to go. Your ducks are all in a row. That's great. Ducks are good eating any oh haha. But how about some other. Things that you wouldn't consider medical supplies ordinarily. How about some baking soda, Yes, baking soda. You know, many years ago someone wrote an article for our website of Dooming Boom do on net. I'm baking soda in survival settings open to our eyes pretty pretty much to the possibilities off the grid. There are lots of uses for baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate. It helps regulate pH and it keeps the substance from becoming too acidic or too alkaline. When baking soda comes in contact with a vary acidic or a very alkaline. Solution, it neutralizes it. It's most commonly used surprise surprise in baking, where it acts as a leavening agent helps things rise. An open box of baking soda, by the way, and the fridge helps soak up nasty odors. I'll bet you might just have one in your refrigerator right now. But both baking soda and baking powder are leavening agents, which means that they are added to bake goods before cooking to help produce carbon dioxide. And what that does is it causes things to rise. So you have your cakes and your breads and things like that rise as a result of having some baking soda in there. Baking powder contains baking soda, but it also contains an acidifying agent in starch. They're not exactly the same thing. You can substitute baking powder in place of baking soda, but you'll need three times the amount of baking powder probably, and indeed it may affect the taste somewhat. You can't use baking soda. However, if a recipe calls for baking powder, those are very that's very important. Maybe you should rewind this so that you know the difference between the two that's very important. Are there medical uses for baking soda, You bet you there definitely. You want to have a supply of it in your medical storage. You can treat insect bites and itch you skin with it. You make a paste out of the baking soda and water and you apply it as. A sad onto the affected skin. It eases itch. What you can do is you can just shake shake some baking powder into your hand, rub rub it into the damp skin that's irritated simply by it self like that, and that indeed you're sort of making a paste that. Way as well. It even makes a fairly good cleaner for wounds, but it does sting some. That's something that's important to know that. Even though some people have used that in off grid settings, it burns. So that's something that you just sort of need to take it into account. If you have nothing else, maybe use it, but but maybe does some clean drinkable water and cleaning out wounds with that might be better. You can't apply it on rashzo specifically poison ivy irritations. A lot of people use baking soda paste on that. Now the Medican use baking soda also to unblock a stuff he knows by adding a teaspoon of baking soda to a pot of boiling water, well maybe not boiling water, hot water, and having the patient inhale the vapors that come from it. So that's a good form of seam inhalation therapy for nasal congestion. Now, you have very small children, baby skin, very very sensitive, so you need something gentle. So you might want to dissolve maybe a half a cup of baking soda in a couple of quarts of water, then soak your cloth diapers thoroughly in that. Yes, you'll be using cloth diapers just like your ancestors. Those panthers, those loves are gonna go by the wayside. In a long term survival setting, you're gonna have to use plain old cloth. A little baking soda on a diaper at night. Well, that can help reduce diaper rash and ammonia smell. You can put maybe two tablespoons in your baby's bathwater deck could help treat diaper rash. Some people have used it for that. Now you may have some four legged children also for them, you can use baking soda to deodorize their pet bedding that cat boxes things like that. You cover let's say the bottom of a litter box with some baking soda and then fill in the rest with whatever litter you're using, And to freshen between changes, you sprinkle baking soda on top of the litter. After a thorough cleaning, eliminate odors from your pets betting by sprinking liberally with some baking soda. Wait about fifteen minutes. Then take the bedding outside and beat it like you would a rug. And if you do that, then it might be a little more livable. To have that old pet bed there. You can also bathe pets themselves using baking soda. It's good for getting rid of that wet dog smell. If you take it to extremes, it can help you actually get rid of some of the smell after a less than friendly encounter with that skunk that lives in a woodpile. Now I suffer from acid reflux, and I store things like tons or rolaid tablets for the heartburn that's so common in people that are under stress. They keep pretty well over time. By the way, as long as you get them in the tablet form, they're essentially just calcium carbonate, so not a bad idea to have some around, and not a bad idea to have some baking soda around because that's what they used before or these products came into being. It's a safe and effective ant acid to relieve heartburn and acid reflux. What you do is you take a tea spoon of baking so you put it in a glass of water and have your people with heartburn take it after meals and they will feel better. You probably also know that baking soda is useful as a replacement for toothpaste. Eventually you're gonna run out of the commercial brands like Crest, You're gonna have to make do with something else. Baking soda commonly uses a toothpaste used to be used in the old days, they would you would have a toothpowder instead of a toothpaste. And that was baking soda. You can use baking soda alone, we can, just like they did in the nineteen thirties nineteen forties. Or you can make a paste of it from baking soda and maybe a three percent hydrogen peroxide solution that'll help keep your teeth and your gums clean. If you have dentures, it will help to keep the nose clean in a little warm water with some baking soda. It can also be used as a rint to deal with bad breath. You might be surprised to know the baking soda can help get rid of body odor. Sure enough, some. Baking soda and a bucket of water can help wash off the stink from the wilderness. It also won't give off a fragrance like a lot of soap, so you won't have any pheronomes there that are gonna attract the zombies. If you've got a tub, a half cup of baking soda can wash away oil and perspiration. Some dry baking soda under the armpits can deal with body odor a little bit as well, and indeed, a little bit in just the right places might prevent some chafing. Now, don't forget to add some baking soda to your boots. It will help keep your feet dryer, better smelling, and might help prevent blisters. Other things that. It's useful for that aren't purely medical to help with hygiene is scrubbing down counters, washing clothes, even cleaning out a car that you have to sleep in for a week while bugging out now. If you have stubborn stains, you can try soaking it overnight in baking soda solution, or scrubbing with baking soda on a damp sponge. When you finally do get to your bug out location, there's still a lot of things you can use baking soda for. Before you head in for lunch. After digging out of a tree, you can use some baking soda as a hand cleaner. It'll gently scrub away ground and dirt and neutralize some odors on your hands. Here's ago a. Reader told me that baking soda can be used to neutralize battery acid corrosion in cars and generators. Because it's a mild alkali basic solution, be sure to disconnect the battery terminals before you clean it. What you do is you make a paste of about three parts of baking soda one part water. You apply it with a damp cloth to scrub corrosion from the battery terminals. After cleaning and reconnecting the terminals, you wipe them with maybe little petroleum jelly and it might help prevent further corrosion. Now a bug out location, if it has a septic tank, well, regular use of baking soda can help keep it flowing freely. One cup of baking soda a week, let's say, can help maintain a favorable pH in a septic tank. My reader also told me that you can extinguish fires with baking soda. That actually makes sense. It can help in the initial handling of minor grease or electrical fires because when baking soda is heated, it gives off carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is not oxygen. It helps to smother flames and doesn't feed flames. For small cooking fires like frying pans, broilers, ovens, grills, they got to stand back, throw handsfuls of baking soda at the base of the flame, and that might indeed help put out the fire. How about that? I had not thought of that. Baking soda can also discourage bugs like answer roaches. Some people use it to keep snails from eating their plants. Some people even say it works to keep rabbits from coming and eating the vegetables. And don't forget the many uses in the kitchen. Baking soda can clean out coffee pots, clean residue and dirt off fresh fruit and vegetables, but you have to still rinse it afterwards with water. You can use baking soda mixed with apple cider vinegar to clean your pipes. After using sponges for a while, of course, they begin to get a little mildewy. Baking soda is perfect for eliminating the stale smell from over you sponges. To clean your sponges, you mix four tablespoons of baking soda with a quart of warm water and there you go. When dipping a chicken and boiling water, you can actually might make plucking easier. Add a teaspoon of baking soda to that boiling water and feathers. According to my reader say he said that feathers come off easier, the flesh will be clean and white. You can also slightly modify the gamy taste of some bush meat by soaking it into baking soda solution. It works for the fishy smell from your catch by soaking the raw fish in indeed the same solution for an hour, maybe inside a cooler, though before you cook it actually definitely inside a cooler. A lot of people that can't grow vegetables, they have maybe some success with tomatoes, but think you have to think about it. Tomatoes have a lot of acid. A pinch of baking soda may help to reduce the acidity of your tomato based recipes. And don't forget guess what. You can still use it as a leavening agent when you're making bread. After the bread, make a thick paste of baking soda and water. Use it to scrub that enameled cast iron and stainless steel cookware. You can remove burned on food from a pan by soaking it in baking soda solution for about ten minutes before washing. Now you may be several years down the road and you still have some baking soda. How do you know that the baking soda is still fresh enough to use? Simple? What you do is you take a bowl with some baking soda in it. You pour some apple cider vinegar in it. If it's good, that thing will start fizzing like crazy, So use a large bowl or else you're gonna wind up having. All this fizz all over yourself. Well, there you have it. It's important to know that survival is not always about guns, ammo and tourniquets. Our ancestors use what they needed to to live full lives, and you might have to go back to the basics one day in times of trouble and baking soda, well, you know what might just help. It's a versatile item and you might want to have some around. Here's a news flash for my friends in Georgia. Amy's father and mother live in Georgia, and sure enough, this is something that's happening right in their home state. An invasive fish species has been spotted in your area recently, just this year, and your bass fishing days may soon be. Over if you don't take action. It's causing so much concern that wildlife officials want anyone who encounters this fish to you immediately kill the animal, which by the way, can survive on both land and in water. It's not new. It's already a problem in fourteen states, but just hadn't been seen in the Peach State until now. It's called the northern snakehead, and it's a very unusual kind of fish. It actually can breathe air and therefore, for a period of time, can live on land and stagnant water and water. You think you wouldn't see fish, and you might be able to see fish like this that get to three feet long, and they are a major issue if you like bass fishing, because they just love to eat young bass. So if you see this guy, kill it immediately. I'm gonna be putting up a picture on the website at doom and bloom dot net for the link to this podcast. Okay, now I'm gonna shift gears from a very versatile fish to a very ancient organism. Ancient, I say, ancient, boy, I am talking billions of years. When it comes to current events, you gotta know the history behind them, right, wouldn't you say that? Don't they say that if you fail to remember the past, that you're going to be doomed to repeat it. Well, so let's talk a little bit about history of a particular organism, and that organism is bacteria. You know that you can definitely say the same of the developments through times that led to the advent of bacteria and the developments that caused humans to discover and learn about them for the first time. Bacteria have played their part in the evolution of the planet for eons. As a matter of fact, eons fossils of microorganisms have been discovered in stone dating more than four hundred million years ago. Wow, that's a long long time and Some argue that primitive bacteria probably existed three to four billion years ago, almost as far back as the beginning of birth's history, and they spend most of that time as the predominant life form on Earth. They even went through several mass extinction extinctions, they think, and then came back to occupy the planet again and again, and they have left their mark, good and bad on pretty much every species that came after them. Indeed, in your body today you have more bacterial. Cells than you have human cells. The presence of oxygen in the atmosphere, just the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere, the possibility of life on Earth as we know it is a consequence of bacteria, specifically a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria. Sometimes they call it blue green algae, but it's actually a type of very very early bacteria. Cyanobacteria were early users of a process called photosynthesis, where water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight combined to produce oxygen. Even today, the part of a plant cell that conducts photosynthesis, called the chloroplast, is essentially just a cyanobacterium. Despite this, human have very little idea that bacteria were such a pervasive presence in our world. They didn't have any idea that they existed at all until just a few hundred years ago. Indeed, we were completely unaware of their existence, but not of course the diseases they caused, things like playing cholera, things like that. As new innovations at like magnifying glasses in the thirteenth century, simple microscopes in the sixteenth seventeenth century were developed, we began to learn more about a world that previously was absolutely unknown to us, like the New World. It wasn't until the invention of a microscope, an actual microscope, that bacteria was discovering. That occurred in sixteen seventy six, where a dust Dutch guy named Anthony van Leuyenhoge he called himself a microscopist, was the first to publish articles on bacteria and protozoans. He called them animal cules like molecules. Animal cules is what he called them, as well as. Human sperm red blood cells. These are the first times that we got to see things like that. And the funny thing is that his findings, amazingly were considered just mere curiosities and there was no real further interest in them other than oddity. As an oddity for a hundred years. By the mid eighteen hundreds, however, the connection between bacteria and disease was much more fully appreciated as a result of the work of one scientist named Lewis Pasteur or Louis Pasteur if you use the French. He performed studies to determine why milk and wine go sour with time. Pasteur concluded that bacteria were the culprits. He deduced that if bacteria it can make milk or wine sick, then why not human beings? And this assumption led to something called the germ theory of disease, which suggested that microbes were the cause of infectious diseases. Pastor himself was unable to prove this theory, but later on a German scientist named Robert Coch performed an experiment that did and this experiment was pretty interesting. He injected mice with bacteria that came from animals that died from anthrax. The injected mice. All developed an threats themselves in short order. How about that? And there's no other way to prove it? That is one way for sure. Now. It took the invention of the light bulb that was panted in eighteen eighty by Thomas Edison for microscope technology to reach its maximum potential, And since then various new techniques for visualizing microbes have been developed. Electron microscopy all sorts of stuff that can see things so much smaller than a microscope can. And so these greatly improved on the microscope and afforded a very detailed look at bacteria and other microorganisms. Now, those that received the most attention were the ones that caused diseases. We call organisms that cause diseases. We call them pathogens. So you may hear me on these shows refer to pathogens often many pandemic diseases like plague and cholera. They became treatable as a result of knowing about these pathogens and the development of antibiotics, which occurred in the early to mid twentieth century. Others, like many viruses, well, they still remain beyond our ability to cure, but now we are actually able to see them too with the miracle of modern science. Now, mankind, however, is just not content to sit on its laurels. All these breakthroughs and discoveries are awesome, but breakthroughs and discoveries occur all the time. There's all sorts of new ones. Here's an amazing one that I don't know whether it's amazing good or amazing bad. Scientists led by a biologist named Craig Venter have managed to create a species of bacteria in the lab. You hear what I just said. A species of bacteria in the lab have been synthesized, the first synthetic life form that can actually self replicate. It can replicate itself, and for many that is what they call the definition of life. Venor, who's an acquaintance of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, believes that manufacturing new bacteria may actually help in terraforming the surface of the planet Mars. Now back on Earth, some Japanese scientists have discovered a series of species of bacteria that can eat plastic that's found. In disposable water bottles. That might be very helpful in cleaning up the planet, considering that we produce about fifty million tons of this stuff every year. Now, that wouldn't that be hicive We can get rid of all that. Oh, maybe we should start drinking some water from the tap here and there. Well, that's one man's opinion. History is not yet complete. For bacteria, that is for sure. We're going to see some amazing and maybe scary things in the future, and the history of mankind is not complete either. As time progresses, we may still benefit from Earth's earliest or even its latest inhabitants. That's all the time we have for this week's Survival Medicine Hour. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we will be back next week with more news you can use and hope save a few lives. Thanks for listening. Are you worried about how dangerous the world has become in these days of terrorist attacks, natural disasters, or even a future collapse. You need to be medically prepared to keep your family safe. I maybe aut an AIRNP of Store dot dooman bloom dot net, where you'll find an entire line of uniquely designed medical. Kits and supplies for when help is not on the way. For everything from individual first aid kits to the ultimate family medical bag. Go to store dot Doom and bloom dot net today. You'll be glad you did. Hey, are you still listening to this podcast? It's over. Go outside and do some exercise, Eat right, and subscribe to our channels, Thanks so much,