(Karra works with us on items for a survival kit which wouldn’t be thought of in a rush. Things such plaster of Paris is cheap and is useful in making casts though we do cover some ways to make casts when out in the wild. Other items include honey and Bull Durham for poultices.) 

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Russ: now as I understand it, you can use poultices to pull things out from inside your body too.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: that’s correct.

Russ: so it doesn’t even show on the outside.

Skip: that’s correct.

Russ: how the heck does that work?

Skip: I can’t explain it no more than I can explain this.

Karra: it’s to do with the…..for example, tobacco is very useful agent, it helps to draw tremendously and that is part of the reason why we’re going to use tobacco in the poultice. I know you can’t get any tree fern to use so we're going to have to do without that a little bit.

Skip: so you make do with what you’ve got.

Karra: that’s right but I can give you a whole list of ideas to make poultices and stuff. Now, I’ve got one, basic battlefield medicine. You have a broken arm, you don’t have anything to make a cast. You have two pieces of wood for the splint and some rope, how do you make a cast?

Russ: mud.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: and your undershirt.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: rip it in shreds and smear it with mud, you can make a hell of a cast by putting the two sticks and tying it together.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: or if you have access to clay……

Karra: uh-huh, clay is just as good.

Skip: in fact it’s better….

Karra: yes, better.

Skip: because as it dries out, it’ll get harder than hell.

Karra: uh-huh, it will keep the strength longer.

Russ: what about leather? What if you wet it down and then let it dry?

Karra: ooohhhh.

Skip: no, it shrinks.

Karra: yes.

Russ: oh, well I mean if you put it around the wood, it wouldn’t hold…

Skip: it would pull the wood into the arm.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: it will shrink, leather shrinks real badly when it dries out.

Karra: now the only time that you want to do that is if it is a severe, clean break.

Skip: compound fracture.

Karra: yeah, it’s the only time that you’ll do something like that for the simple reason that lets say the bone’s sticking up like this but it’s a clean break. You wrap it and as it dries…..

Skip: it will pull it back in.

Karra: pull it back together.

Russ: ooohhh I see.

Karra: that’s the only time that you do that.

Russ: so know how to use though.

Karra: uh-huh and I don’t want you to even think about doing it for anything else.
Skip: now, can I interrupt you just a minute darling.

Karra: certainly.

Skip: if in your survival equipment, if you will put one pound box of plaster of Paris, there’s many, many uses for it and casts are one of it.

Karra: uh-huh, making molds……

Skip: repairs.......

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: all kinds of things plaster of Paris is good for.

Russ: hmm.

Karra: now, using mud…..

Skip: mud works great.

Karra: uh-huh however there is the infection factor so what you do with the mud?

Russ: boil it?

Karra: uh-huh if you have time, if not, you put lots of sulfur on the wound.

Skip: one other thing you can do I believe, now maybe I’m going to be wrong but if you’re in a area where you can get a hold of outside broadleaf flowers…..

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: you can use them leaves underneath the mud and the infection won't go into the arm.

Karra: uh-huh but I was just thinking of something else as well that made me chuckle, something else that will help to sterilize the wound, alcohol again.

Skip: yes, again alcohol yeah......

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: that'll sterilize the wound.

Karra: so we’ve covered…..

Russ: tobacco and alcohol.

Skip: tobacco and alcohol.

Karra: the one ingredient for what?

Skip: for trade.

Karra: sulfur.

Skip: for trade.

Karra: sulfur.

Skip: sulfur? Sulfur, powdered sulfa. Now wait a minute, sulfur in its pure form is poisonous…

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: you need sulfa drug.

Karra: uh-huh, that’s correct.

Skip: because it's mixed.

Karra: but what can you use sulfur for?

Skip: you can burn it, you can decontaminate areas with it…….

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: you can anchor bolts with it to hold down machinery, you can mix it with charcoal and........

Russ: potassium?

Skip: potassium sulfate to make gunpowder.

Karra: that’s the one I was looking for.

Skip: (laughs) in other words there’s many, many uses for sulfur.

Karra: uh-huh.

Russ: now what about honey?

Skip: honey is one of your most natural sweeteners out there.

Karra: uh-huh.

Russ: I thought it’s good for healing too.

Skip: it is good for healing and it’s good for tea.

Russ: for burns and cut and scrapes.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: for internal colds, lungs problems, sore throat…..

Karra: it’s a great healing agent, that’s one of the things as I do my things on herbs….

Russ: uh-huh.

Karra: actually one of the best honeys is probably clove honey.

Skip: yeah clover honey yeah.

Karra: uh-huh.

Russ: hmmm.

Skip: natural clover honey. Now…..

Russ: so keeping a stock of that would be good too.

Skip: now wait a minute, honey is a perishable item.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: if you keep honey too long it solidifies.

Russ: you can’t like heat it and make it back to…..

Skip: yes you can but every time you heat it solidifies a little harder and it's a little harder to bring it back.

Russ: so it's kind of like amber almost.

Skip: yes, yes, yes. I got a pound jar of honey in my refrigerator, it’s solid, I can't even stick a spoon in there. I have to take the lid off and stick it in the microwave to get it to go back to liquid form. And to mix water with it, you're destroying the properties of the honey.

Karra: uh-huh, you’re contaminating it.

Skip: yep.

Russ: hmm.

Karra: okay we're getting close to time I believe, can we check?

Skip: I’m sorry honey, I didn’t mean to….

Karra: no, no, no, no, that’s all right.

Skip: I’m running my fat mouth tonight.

Russ: no that’s quite handy actually.

Karra: uh-huh. It’s like I’ve said in the past, when we have a group of healers together, we can discuss all sorts of things.

Skip: we get carried away.

Russ: well I’m thinking okay so it turns into solid and that’s fine so you break off a piece, heat it up, use it for what your needs are…..

Skip: right.

Russ: and you just put the rest of it back where you had it.

Skip: well usually honey comes packed in jars….

Russ: right.

Skip: plastic or glass.

Russ: or cans if you buy in bulk.

Skip: oh yeah if you buy it in bulk you buy it in cans. Once you rip open that can or rip open the plastic jar or get into a regular glass jar you’ll break it to get out of there. You’re going to have to find a different container to put it in and be careful of glass if it’s in a glass jar. I’d recommend you don’t buy it in glass jars.

Russ: can you vacuum seal it?

Skip: no, it’s too sticky.

Russ: it’s too sticky to vacuum.

Karra: uh-huh, to vacuum seal.

Skip: the consistency is solid but it's still sticky. It's like taking a piece of chocolate in your hand, it’s solid isn’t it? But your hand gets all sticky from the chocolate. One other thing about your tobacco young lady….

Karra: uh-huh, thank you.

Skip: bee and hornet stings….

Karra: oh yes, that was one that I was thinking of, it’s a good thing to draw out those stingers.

Skip: it pulls out the stinger and pulls out the poison.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: wet tobacco....

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: and it doesn’t make any difference if it’s got glycerin in it or not.

Karra: no it doesn’t. I prefer not to use any…….

Skip: I understand, I understand that.

Karra: any contaminants.

Skip: if, in your supplies, if you'll put two, three, four, five bags of Bull Durham and Bull Durham never goes bad because there’s no additives in the tobacco.

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: it’s flake tobacco and it’s packed in these little, look like little cloth bags with a drawstring at the top of them. They breathe, they’ve breathed since the day they were packed.

Russ: hmmm okay.

Skip: so they will not go bad because it’s flake tobacco. Anything that’s got glycerin in it will dry out, cigarettes, pipe tobacco.

Russ: so we need bull Durham and let’s see for our poultices next week........

Karra: I’ve got to chuckle because you know my thing about cigarettes.

Skip: yes I do.

Karra: and yet I’m using tobacco.

Russ: yep.

Skip: honey there’s so many different ways to use natural products.

Karra: oh yes, yes I'm just…...

Skip: just because some of us figured out a way to inhale it……

Karra: uh-huh.

Skip: doesn’t make it all bad.

Karra: oh no, no, no I’m just teasing, I’m just stating……

Skip: I know you are, I know you are.

Karra: it’s like anything, there’s a good and bad to it.

Skip: that’s right, that’s right.