Blood Poisoning

[monsterchic]

What are the symptoms? If someone had it, how would you heal it naturally(no modern medicine, character is in a forest), and could you get it from a sword wound? If any of you have possibly had it, what's it feel like? Also, if the poison wasn't completely gone, could it come back after seemingly going away?

 

[Abernovo]

I'm not a doctor, so this is anecdotal, from working in nature conservation.

Yes, you could get it from a sword wound, or any wound that isn't properly cleaned out. I've seen red line(s) going up a limb from a wound. One person I knew, who had blood poisoning, had few side effects, which is one of the reasons it can be dangerous. Pain around the wound, that was healing over after almost a week, and a headache, that they didn't connect to the injury.

Nowadays, doctors can treat it with antibiotics. In the past healers used natural plant remedies. Garlic might help, as might plenty of clean liquid. If the infection's still in the wound and it starts to fester, maggots were (and still are) used to eat away rotten flesh. That would stop further infection leaching into the blood. Is there a Wise Woman/healer anywhere close to the character?

EDIT: Memory's going. Linden trees, particularly the leaves, have good antibacterial properties. Again, I'm not a doctor, or a herbalist, so I'm sure someone with superior knowledge will be along in a while.

 

[monsterchic]

Yeah, he and his brother are at the healer's and so far(correct me if I'm going about this wrong) they've put a tourniquet on it and are trying to suck out the poison. Sound plausible?

 

[Abernovo]

Purely from what I've been told as a First Aider, sucking out poison is almost pointless. It spreads through smaller blood vessels, so unless you cut them all open (which might not be healthy either ), you're on a hiding to nothing.

I'd expect a healer, especially a country healer, to have herbs and mushrooms, and such-like, for this sort of event. Have you Googled naturally antibiotic plants at all? Something like that might help as a baseline.

 

[prizzley]

In the past healers used natural plant remedies. Garlic might help, as might plenty of clean liquid. If the infection's still in the wound and it starts to fester, maggots were (and still are) used to eat away rotten flesh. That would stop further infection leaching into the blood.

Linden trees, particularly the leaves, have good antibacterial properties.

My own research confirms maggots. I hadn't read about linden leaves, but I understand lavender oil is strongly antiseptic. Spiders' webs contain penicillin and were used to cover wounds.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Also, I'm pretty sure aspirin is a derivative of willow bark, so that would help keep the fever down?

I think cleanliness and slowing the spread are the two keys, so maybe (and I have no medical knowledge at all) something from the digitalis family might work (foxgloves and the like. They're very poisonous in large doses, but sometimes small doses would have been used medicinally, I think.)

Oh, and honey is a natural antibacterial, I think. And arnica reduces bruising.

 

[Gumboot]

There may be a bit of confusion here. Sepsis, despite its common name, doesn't actually involve any poison, and if limited to the blood alone, won't involve much in the way of dead flesh until it's well past surviving.

Before the advent of antiobiotics, sepsis was one of the number one killers, which was the reason behind the famous fencing saying "the victor is the one who walks away with a whole skin" (or words to that effect). Without modern antibiotics, once you have sepsis, your odds of survival are almost non existent. Your best hope is early detection and amputation of the affected limb, however the problem is, at the time when amputation might help often the only symptom is cold/flu symptoms and dark discolouration of blood vessels, at which point amputation seems like an extreme and unnecessary act.

A friend of mine almost died of sepsis earlier this year after a wound suffered on a film set (he's a stunt man). He split open his elbow in a fight, and it healed over, but the dirt and dust on set was sealed inside the wound - the perfect breeding ground for infection.

A week or two later he felt pain in his arm and flu-like symptoms, combined with a fluctuating heartbeat. Because of the fake tan he had to wear for his stunt role, there were no visible signs of infection.

He went to an emergency room to be looked at, and at first was palmed off, until he mentioned the heart. They used strong alcohol to clean off the fake tan (layered up after weeks of shooting, effectively staining his skin), and his entire arm was black up to his shoulder.

He was immediately transported to hospital, pumped with antibiotics, and prepped to have his arm taken off at the shoulder. When he realised this was what was happening he protested and they explained they believed the infection was already in his heart, at a 3-month level of aggressiveness, and if they didn't remove his arm he would be dead in hours.

He refused permission to have his arm removed and told them to do what they could without removing it, and they began an intensive regime of pumping antibiotics directly into his arm. For about eight days he was touch and go with regular failing heart beat and so on, but the infection retreated down his arm and he's now totally fine.

I guess the lesson here is that blood poisoning reaches a fatal point long before outward signs of serious infection appear, other than discoloration of the skin around shallow blood vessels. And without modern medicine, it's essentially impossible to stop.

Of course, if it's a fantasy setting you could consider some sort of plant with remarkable concentrated antibiotic properties, equivalent of modern medicine.

 

[mosaix]

About 20 years ago I tripped and cut my hand. Small wound, nothing to worry about. Three to four days later I noticed a red line starting at the inside of my wrist an travelling up towards my elbow. It advanced at about the speed of two to three inches a day.

Doctor gave me strong anti-biotics. He said that if I'd left it long enough to reach my armpit it would have been very serious.

 

[kshRox]

What are the symptoms? If someone had it, how would you heal it naturally(no modern medicine, character is in a forest), and could you get it from a sword wound? If any of you have possibly had it, what's it feel like? Also, if the poison wasn't completely gone, could it come back after seemingly going away?

I don't know if it would help, but I can see where, 'bleeding' and 'leeching' may have come from.

 

[Biskit]

To reinforce what Gumboot said - sepsis is a killer, even with modern antibiotics - see this news article from September.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19597812

I recall, a number of years back, an article about a girl (aged about 10? - long time back) who put a garden fork through her welly, and through her foot. Removing it was a major exercise because they wanted to minimise (further?) contamination of the wound. (Must have been pretty messy going in...)

Sepsis was 'discovered' by Ignaz Semmelweis, looking at post-natal mortality of mothers in his clinic, and was partly assisted in understanding the issue by the death of a colleague who was cut and infected during a post-mortem examination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

If you've got a contaminated wound, sepsis is waiting to get you, along with tetanus and gangrene. The may be other nasty variants, but those are the three I am aware of.

If you want a nasty (anecdotal) variant - I used to do English Civil War battle reenactments and I heard it claimed that pikemen of the period would dip the point of their pikes in animal dung before the battle to make a wound more likely to be fatal.

 

[Gumboot]

Sepsis was 'discovered' by Ignaz Semmelweis, looking at post-natal mortality of mothers in his clinic

Actually that really illustrates the point. Prior to modern medicine, child-birth was the single biggest killer of women - I think the chance of dying was something like 25% which means once you'd had four kids...

Most of those deaths were due to sepsis after the birth, rather than complications during the birth itself.

It's quite astonishing, if you think about it, how long it took humans to make the connection that it was a good idea to keep wounds clean!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I have a recipe that my mother used to make a "black salve" -- it was actually brown -- that is used for various infectious things, and it is good stuff! My brother had blood poisoning once, did something to his foot I believe, and of course over a holiday weekend, and came to Mom complaining about a red streak up his leg. She put black salve on it, planning to take him to the hospital in the morning, and by morning the streak was gone and the wound was looking better. We also used this stuff to remove porcupine quills imbedded in a dog's throat (pulled the bandage off and the thing shot across the room), and for lots of other things.

If you have a healer, it's conceivable that they could have come up with a similar recipe for a healing salve that would do the trick.

Our black salve uses rosin, beeswax, Lifebuoy soap (probably not in the forest, but I think it's a borax?), salt and Crisco (lard?).

 

[Null_Zone]

It feels and presents along the lines of flu like illness -considering Doctors have a very broad catagory of "flu". Which makes diagnosis difficult without blood tests that take time, especially as blood poisoning covers a wide variety of problems.

As for what it looks like, again it depends on the type but inflamation spreading out from the wound would be common if it's a shallow wound. A bit like bruising from giving blood but...redder.

 

[nubins]

As Springs mentioned.. honey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_honey

Natural anti bacterial agents, one variety can even help against MRSA, where antibiotics have been largely useless. I can confirms its effects myself, having had a particularly stubborn wound after a surgery that refused to heal until I applied bandages soaked in manuka honey to it.

Other than that.. maggots, arnica (bruising), animal venom was often used as a painkiller, as were opiates and other drugs, depending on the ailment, but i doubt poppys, coca and marihuana started out as being used for fun only.

But for your wound sepsis, honey and cleanliness for the wound and feed him lots of garlic for the blood.

http://www.naturalnews.com/035516_natural_antibiotics_superbugs.html

I have a feeling that the reason why garlic gets associated with vampire folklore so much, is because it has such an obvious effect on our blood. Just holding garlic transfers the chemical through our skin and into the blood stream (you can get garlic breath without even eating the stuff). It strengthens the immune system, specifically the part the blood plays in our immune response.

Most pharmaceuticals have their origins in the natural world, so if you are writing in a fantasy world, you could easily make something up with the local flora.

 

[Biskit]

Our black salve uses rosin, beeswax, Lifebuoy soap (probably not in the forest, but I think it's a borax?), salt and Crisco (lard?).

As an ex-beekeeper: rosin has a similar source to stuff called propolis - a gooey brown resinous matieral that the bees use to glue things down with in the hive and traditionally held to have healing properties. Apparently you can buy 'tincture of propolis'.

Nubins mentioned using manuka honey - interesting on two levels. Firstly, honey in general is attributed as having anti-bacterial properties (One of which may well be the high sugar concentration which has traditionally been used as a food preservative - jam, jelly, candied fruit etc). Secondly, manuka honey has the additional attribute of containing material from the manuka tree, also known as the Tea Tree. Tea Tree Oil is sold as an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal.

If you want to get technical, all of these things contain terpenes - a broad class of organic compounds, often with a clinical/disinfectant odour, many of which as used as anti-bacterial agents.

 

[Montero]

A friend who had a tom cat that went out for regular fights said that after a number of infected bites the cat seemed to be running a permanent low level infection, and breaking out into infected sores without first being injured. (Not sure how they knew, maybe they kept him in.) But she said that basically tom cats tend to die of an infection.

Read various autobiographical books written by nurses, and pre-antibiotics, any recently given birth mother who either developed an infection or had a VD was instantly isolated and treated in isolation (curtains, change of clothes and gloves by the nurses) as all the other uninfected new mothers were very vulnerable to infection both because their systems had been stressed and because the birth canal was tending towards raw after giving birth.

 

[Gumboot]

It should be pointed out that while it is often claimed that honey (and Manuka honey in particular) has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, there's actually virtually no scientific evidence to support this.

 

[nubins]

It should be pointed out that while it is often claimed that honey (and Manuka honey in particular) has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, there's actually virtually no scientific evidence to support this.

Actually there is plenty of evidence. It would also explain why my GP and plastic surgeon (who was reviewing me for completely reconstructing the surgery site due to poor healing progress and is a top specialist in reconstructive surgery for McIndoe) both agreed it would help.. and.. guess what? It did. 3 Years of failed attempts to get the area to heal enough to be operated on again and what finally does it? Rated manuka honey.

http://www.webmd.boots.com/vitamins-and-minerals/manuka-honey

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

With blood poisoning?

Generally you would have the risk of gangrene setting in, which would go into skin necrosis if not properly treated. If the character came down with something like MRSA, then as the infection spread-which it would do quite rapidly-you would probably see red streaks running up the area of the body infected. (I know that one because just last year my stepfather was diagnosed with a MRSA infection and that was one of his symptoms.)


At first the invasion point itself would be red and inflamed as histamine would rush to the spot. Eventually, if left untreated, microbial blood poisoning would cause fever and then death. Some would be able to survive it; I suspect that many would not.



If it's something like tetanus, then I wouldn't know nearly as much. I would figure gangrene would be a symptom, and eventually fever and possible death, but I don't think it would have the red streaking that MRSA would have.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

We seem to be talking about a number of different illnesses here. Sepsis is basically an infected wound, and can be associated with a number of different bacteria. Traditional methods for dealing with such things often involved debriding of the wound (cutting out the dead parts), various poultices and herbs applied topically, and others ingested to reduce the fever. Honey actually has quite a reasonable antibacterial effect when applied topically though it won't compare to a modern antibacterial creme, and maggots are quite effective at debriding dead flesh. They're being trialed at present in a number of wound care trials.

Amputation can also be used to save a life, but often the problem is that before its tried the infection has spread too far. Also the shock, blood loss etc, can kill a man easily, and the new wound can become infected all over again.

Blood poisoning is correctly known as septicemia, and again can be due to a number of different bacteria. The main symptom is going to be fever, often very high fevers, including shaking, argues, and of course headache and delerium etc. Survival will largely depend on the health of the patient prior to the infection, the particular bacteria involved, and things like keeping fevers down. Also whether the patient has been exposed previously to the bacteria and thus may have a natural immunity is important. Some bugs, meningococcal meningitis etc, were going to kill you regardless of any drug save massive doses of broad spectrum IV antibiotics.

Typically asparin from willow bark preparations, might have been used to fight pain and fever, some herbs as well. But prior to IV antibiotics they would have been of minimal use. Silver preparations have been tried, quacks still peddle them, but they are completely useless.

As for tetanus, the disease is caused by a toxoid released by bacteria that grow in wounds. It's a horrible way to die, and prior to the twentieth century and the development of the vaccine against the toxoid, it probably killed more soldiers than the weapons.

Poisoning as from snake bites etc, is completely different, and I believe current advice is not to suck the venom out. Apply a tournequet and get to a hospital ASAP. There's too great a chance that the suckee might get the venom into his own body and die.

If you need to check on the efficacy of any herbal preparations etc and they've been studied, chances are that there'll be a Cochrane report on it. Also you can if you've got access, check out the natural medicines database: http://resources.library.yale.edu/online/dbsbysubjecthfxml_info.asp?searchfor=med&lookfor=YUL03570

Cheers, Greg.