Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/26

12 is how to stop the bleeding. Remember, that just as important as stopping the bleeding is the keeping of any sort of dirt from getting near the wound. Now dirt here does not mean what you generally call dirt—mud and dust: it means anything containing germs. Germs are tiny little insects, so small that your eye can't see them; if they get into a cut they may poison it so that it festers and becomes really dangerous, ending, possibly, in the loss of a finger or hand. The worst kind of germs are those that come out of earth—such as garden mold, or mud from the road. They cause a terrible disease known as lock-jaw, so great care should be taken if any one gets a deep cut while gardening, for instance. But any dust, or any soiled object may, and does, contain germs. So if you are about to bandage a cut, find the very cleanest thing you can think of to put next to the wound. The inside part of a clean, folded handkerchief would probably be the best you could do, or failing this the inside of a clean sheet of notepaper, or the inside of an envelope. Having put something clean over the wound, you must add padding of some sort—several handkerchiefs or pieces of rag. Then bind up very firmly with tight, even pressure so as to stop the bleeding.

You can do this with strips of rag or a large, folded handkerchief. Make the patient keep his hand raised, or put it in a sling, which you can make from a scarf if you have one. Remember that your help is only first aid: so take the patient to a grown-up person who will attend to the wound more thoroughly, or take him to a doctor to be stitched up.