IN CASE OF CHILD, TIE HANDS DOWN. PEARLS OF WISDOM FROM A FIRST AID GUIDE, 1946.

• Abrasions: Wipe surface clean, using lint. Too bad I just had my jacket cleaned. No lint in my pockets.
• Bites and rabid animals: Do not kill animal, tie it up and consult local health officer. God, it’s hard to tie up a porcupine!
• Childbirth (sudden): Okay, so the baby is breathing. What do I do next? Save afterbirth for doctor’s inspection, and do not clean up blood clots, etc. Oh good, I didn’t have the energy to clean up anyway.
• Foreign objects, extraction of: If the object is lodged in the nose, cause patient to blow nose violently. Insect in ear? Fill ear with olive oil, it will float to the surface. In case of child tie hands down. Crochet hook in hand? I don't know any violent crochet hookers, so I think we can skip that.
• Fire (person on): Lie flat, flames uppermost, smother flames with anything handy. Call for assistance.
• Cut throat: If patient is fully conscious, keep seated.

And no, I didn’t make any of this up.

(Source: Pocket guide to First Aid issued by the Grand Priory of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, 4^th edition, 1946)

LAY PATIENT ON BACK, SEND FOR DOCTOR. FIRST AID ADVICE BY THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN, 1946.

Douglas Fairbanks, Knight of the Order, 1958

I’ve just come across a POCKET GUIDE TO FIRST AID published by the Grand Priory of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in 1946. No, I did not make that up.

Here is some useful advice from that remarkable book.

• Apoplexy: Lay patient on back. Send for doctor.
• Drowning: Lay patient in prone position. Send for doctor as soon as possible.
• Nose bleed: Place patient in sitting position head thrown back…Keep mouth open, no blowing of nose.
• Shock: A serious condition which frequently follows severe accidents…Lay on back, loosen clothing, keep warm.
• Frozen person: There must be no sudden application of heat to a frozen person…Thawing should be carried out in cool room with open window.

Okay, but do I lay the frozen person on the back or in the prone position?

• Gas Poisoning: Remove from poison air.
• Hysteria: Avoid sympathy, speak firmly.
• Hanging: Do not wait for police…cut rope.

Okay, I’ll say it again: No, I didn’t make that up. It’s all in the book, which was published in Canada, by the way, and is therefore bilingual. En Français:

Apoplexie: Couchez le malade sur le dos. Envoyez cherche le médicin…

WE LIVE IN A WICKED, WICKED WORLD: JUAN VIVES’ LAMENT, 1526

In the air there are foul and pestilent emanations, the waters are unhealthy, navigation perilous, winters harsh, the heat of summer unbearable, …and many diseases derived from food.

As in pollution and climate change? No, wait, we are talking 1526. Oh, they had those problems then, too?

Who could enumerate the kinds of poisons and black arts that conspire for man’s mutual destruction? So many weapons against a body so weak that a grape or even a grape pip stuck in his throat can choke him, and some people are suddenly carried off to their deaths for reasons unknown.

So much for the environment in 1526. And the people? Just as nasty.

They are driven by the wish to be superior to others and, worse than that, by the instinct to oppress, so that they can live a life of leisure and profit from the labours of others.

Sound familiar? Read on.

They hold all the power and are surrounded by a gang whom they have recruited by trickery or fear to support their tyranny.

And they think the only good thing is money.

Hence the common phrase: What was the benefit of that? What was the advantage of that?

But Vives wants you to change your attitude. Think beyond money.  If you want to benefit others, don’t give them cash. 

The most important and greatest good deed is to help another in the exercise of virtue…and to educate that most lofty part of man, the mind.

Give with no regard to usefulness!

So, please: not another word about soup kitchens.

(Source: Juan Luis Vives, De subventione pauperum, trans. C. Fantazzi)

IS POVERTY HEAVEN-SENT? ADVICE TO THE POOR FROM JUAN LUIS VIVES.

In 1526 the philosopher Juan Luis Vives published a treatise On the Relief of the Poor. His book is addressed to the mayor and city council of Bruges and argues that it was the responsibility of the state to look after the poor. Sounds progressive? Well, not quite. The 16^th century mentality prevails. Here is Vives’ advice to the poor:

First, they should consider that their poverty has been sent to them by God in a most just and secret design…Therefore they should not only tolerate poverty with resignation but gladly embrace it as a gift of God.

Question: If poverty is God-given, why try to fight it and waste taxpayer’s money on poor relief? A good editor would have cut that bit out. Instead, Vives develops the thought further:

And since they suffer evil in this life, let them strive and do their best not to fare worse in the next. In other words, be good and don’t make God angry.

Let them pray much and with pious sentiments for the good of their own soul and the souls of those who help them in the necessities of life, that the Lord Jesus may deign to reward them a hundredfold in the goods of eternity.

Okay, so that takes care of the goods of eternity, but what about temporal goods?

Let them beg and conduct themselves modestly and honestly…What is more intolerable than a proud pauper? Right. Let’s not overdo it with the self-respect.

One other bit of good advice:

Those who can work must not be idle. That’s the problem with the poor, see? They don’t want to work. Nothing is sweeter to them now than that slothful and torpid idleness.

And if they have kids (and usually do, what with all the sweet idleness),

let them bring up and instruct their children piously and religiously, and although they will not leave them any material goods, they will leave them virtue and wisdom, which is the preferred legacy.

Problem solved.

If they live in this way, I know and I dare to promise…that when food is lacking to them from human sources, it will never be lacking from God in heaven.

Stay tuned for Vives’ advice to the rich.

(Source: Vives, De subventione pauperum, trans. C. Fantazzi)

ISN’T IT IRONIC? ALFRED NOBEL, MANUFACTURER OF DYNAMITE, SUPPORTER OF WORLD PEACE.

Yes, Nobel had a fine sense of irony. He supported Bertha von Suttner’s peace movement, but when she asked him to endorse her programmatic book DOWN WITH ARMS, he replied: That’s a little cruel. Where am I supposed to sell my new powder if world peace breaks out?

When he met with the Dynamiteurs, as he called the directors and administrators of the Society for Dynamite (yes, such a club existed!), he ardently wished for a new Mephistopheles to heat up the fire for those evil-doers (malfaisants). Well, maybe that was hypocrisy rather than irony. He was writing this to a pacifist after all.

You are a veritable Amazon, to make war on war, he tells Suttner.

From another letter to her: I feel old and worm-eaten…I want to finish a certain business I have in hand before retiring to the Hotel des Invalides, a Paris hospital built in 1680 for veterans.

Best example of Nobel’s irony? His “autobiography”:

A humane physician should have terminated my wretched half-life when I made my bawling entrance into life. Greatest merit: keeping my nails clean and burdening no one. Greatest failing: no family, no good mood, no good stomach. Greatest and only request: Don’t bury me alive. Greatest sin: Did not worship Mammon. Most significant events in my life: None.

(Translated from E. Biedermann, Der Briefwechsel zwischen Alfred Nobel und Bertha von Suttner)