First Aid?

by: Fiza Noor

First aid is the first and immediate assistance given to any person suffering from either a minor or serious illness or injury,^[1] with care provided to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, or to promote recovery.  First aid, however, does not necessarily require any particular equipment or prior knowledge and can involve improvisation with materials available at the time, often by untrained people.

It gives you tools to prevent the situation from becoming worse. In some situations, if a patient doesn’t receive basic first aid care immediately their situation will deteriorate – often rapidly. By being able to provide basic care you can stabilize a patient until emergency medical services arrive.

1. Why is first aid not a common practice?   First aid is not a common practice. The reason is the person who is performing first aid have that fear that it may go wrong hence anything bad can happen to the patient. Hence they always prefer to consult a doctor before giving them first aid. 
2. What is the 3 importance of first aid?    The three P’s are as follows: 1) Preserve Life– The most important aspect is to keep the casualty alive. 3) Promote Recovery. -These are steps and processes used to help the casualty to recover, or for the emergency services to assist and take over.
3. What should your First Aid consist of?   The First Aid kit should consist of a First Aid book, band-aids, elastic bandage, gauze and cotton wool, safety pins or tweezers, scissors, small mirror and latex gloves, calamine wtion, clinical thermometer and analgesic tablets.
4. When do you need to see a doctor?  We should see the doctor if the wound is not healing properly, the doctor can treat and guide us in a proper way. We should also consult the doctor if there is any redness, increasing pain, drainage, warmth or swelling.

So, now let’s talk about the history of First Aid! Skills of what is now known as first aid have been recorded throughout history, especially in relation to warfare, where the care of both traumatic and medical cases is required in particularly large numbers. The bandaging of battle wounds is shown on Classical Greek pottery from c. 500 BC, whilst the parable of the Good Samaritan includes references to binding or dressing wounds. Have you ever wondered when was first aid invented? Here is your answer to your curiosity. There is no one period where first aid was definitively invented. However, studies of early civilisations have found that the ancient Egyptians may have been some of the first people to utilize the protective and healing properties of bandages.

In 1870, Prussian military surgeon Friedrich von Esmarch introduced formalized first aid to the military and first coined the term “ErsteHilfe” (translating to ‘first aid’), including training for soldiers in the Franco-Prussian War on care for wounded comrades using pre-learnt bandaging and splinting skills.  Johannes Friedrich August von Esmarch (9 January 1823 – 23 February 1908) was a German surgeon. He developed the Esmarch bandage and founded the Deutscher Samariter-Verein, the predecessor of the Deutscher Samariter-Bund.

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