The traveller who is sick away from help, may console himself with the proverb, that “though there is a great difference between a good physician and a bad one, there is very little between a good one and none at all.”

Drugs and Instruments.—­Outfit of Medicines,—­A traveller, unless he be a professed physician, has no object in taking a large assortment of drugs.  He wants a few powders, ready prepared; which a physician, who knows the diseases of the country in which he is about to travel, will prescribe for him.  Those in general use are as follows:—­

1.  Emetic, mild; 2. ditto, very powerful, for poison (sulphate of zinc, also used as an eye-wash in Ophthalmia). e.  Aperient, mild; 4. ditto, powerful. 5.  Cordial for diarrhoea. 6.  Quinine for ague. 7.  Sudorific (Dover’s powder). 8.  Chlorodyne. 9.  Camphor. 10.  Carbolic acid.

In addition to these powders, the traveller will want Warburg’s fever-drops; glycerine or cold cream; mustard-paper for blistering; heartburn lozenges; lint; a small roll of diachylon; lunar-caustic, in a proper holder, to touch old sores with, and for snake-bites; a scalpel and a blunt-pointed bistoury, with which to open abcesses (the blades of these should be waxed, to keep them from rust); a good pair of forceps, to pull out thorns; a couple of needles, to sew up gashes; waxed thread, or better, silver wire.  A mild effervescing aperient, like Moxon’s is very convenient.  Seidlitz-powders are perhaps a little too strong for frequent use in a tropical climate.

How to carry Medicines.—­The medicines should be kept in zinc pill-boxes with a few letters punched both on their tops and bottoms, to indicate what they contain, as Emet., Astr. etc.  It is more important that the bottoms of the boxes should be labelled than their tops; because when two of them have been opened at the same time, it often happens that the tops run a risk of being changed.

It will save continual trouble with weights and scales, if the powders be so diluted with flour, that one Measureful of each shall be a full average dose for an adult; and if the measure to which they are adopted be cylindrical, and of such a size as just to admit a common lead-pencil, and of a determined length, it can at any time be replaced by twisting up a paper cartridge.  I would further suggest that the powders be differently coloured, one colour being used for emetics and another for aperients.

Lint, to make.—­Scrape a piece of linen with a knife.

Ointment.—­Simple cerate, which is spread on lint as a soothing plaister for sores, consists of equal parts of oil and wax; but lard may be used as a substitute for the wax.

Seidlitz-powders are not often to be procured in the form we are accustomed to take them in, in England; so a recipe for making 12 sets of them, is annexed:—­1 1/2 oz. of Carbonate of Soda and 3 oz. of Tartarised Soda, for the blue papers; 7 drachms of Tartaric Acid, for the white papers.