Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1896 — An Antidote for Carbolic Acid. [ARTICLE]

An Antidote for Carbolic Acid.

It Is difficult for persons In good health to conceive why suicides should choose such a frightfully painful medium for their purpose as carbolic acid. It Is not generally known that to this vicious add vinegar Is an excellent antidote. When applied to a cutaneous or mucous surface which has been burned by the add, the characteristic whitish appearance produced by the caustio at once disappears, and subsequent scarring Is to a great extent prevented. Vinegar Is an equally efficacious remedy when the acid has been taken In tt the stomach, and it Is recommended that the patient should, as soon as possible, drink some vinegar mixed with an equal part of water, after which other measures may be taken to more fully counteract the poison. Most leaves contain some nourishing properties, in particular those of the acacia tree. It would be quite possible to subsist on leaves if the supply were not stinted, and the shipwrecked mariner will keep in very fair condition if he chews them as he would his quid of “baccy.” Several of the world’s most eminent astronomers profess to believe that the sun’s heat is kept up by wrecked worlds that are continually falling into It.