First aid should follow some basic principles, if it is to be valid.
It should do no harm
It should be easy and practical to apply
It should reduce the likelihood of death from the injury
It should reduce the likelihood of long term disablement from the injury
It should not interfere with medical treatment
For cases of envenoming, such as snakebite, the hoped-for benefit from first
aid is immobilisation of venom at the bite site, delaying more widespread venom
effects until medical treatment can be obtained. There is a potential problem,
for by confining venom effects to the local bite area, it may make these local
effects worse. This is a problem for envenoming by species that cause mainly
local effects, rather than general effects. It is for this reason that first
aid methods such as the Australian "pressure immobilisation bandage"
may not be appropriate for bites by species causing local tissue injury (eg
North American rattlesnakes, many other vipers, some cobras).
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR ALL SITE USERS
: The principle aim of this site is to provide
information useful to improving outcomes for humans suffering from envenoming or poisoning by
animals, plants or mushrooms. We make a reasonable attempt to verify accuracy of information
listed on this site. However, we cannot access every published paper of potential relevance,
either because they are not available to us or are in a language we cannot translate internally.
Equally, we cannot list knowledge which is not yet reported or known. It should not be assumed
that humankind currently knows all there is to know about any species, even for common species.
Further, we cannot control how users will interpret the information provided on this site. We
therefore do not accept legal responsibility for use of the information provided and we require
that all users use information from this site at their own risk.
The following should also be noted when reading information contained within the databases on this website: italics for scientific nomenclature cannot be displayed, and superscripting and subscripting is absent in some instances.
Photos downloaded from Wikimedia Commons or other website are licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license (CC BY-SA 2.0), 2.5 Generic license (CC BY-SA 2.5) or 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-SA 3.0), or the Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), or the Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0), or the GNU General Public License (GPL3.0), or in the Public Domain (PD), as shown in the caption to the image displayed on www.toxinology.com.
