How do you treat disease without antibiotics? Our enemies are using bolts and traps coated in filth and human waste

I searched and the first 'antibiotics' are pretty old. I just don't know which exactly things I should seek.

For example, if I get hurt I can search for marigold and aloe. Not a magical cure, but it really helps the wound.

Yeah but chances are that even if you don't die if you take even one good hit in combat you're probably still done as a fighter

>I just don't know which exactly things I should seek.
It doesn't matter if YOU know. What matters is if any of your characters, or their allies, or simply doctors you can pay, know. Ask your GM.

Amputation.

How about you stop fighting these guys? Because that is some shit you don't come back from.

My character is literally me, so any knowledge you guys give helps on the table. And I cannot ask GM directly exactly because of that.

No can do. They are psychotic drug users, like the Fiends in Fallout.

Then you don't need to actually know how to cure diseased wounds. You just need to convince your DM that you know how to cure diseased wounds.

Whenever you get hit, wash/disinfect the wounds with strong alcohol, and bandage it with clean bandages. reapply bandages every 24 hours until the wounds are healed.
IRL, this is nowhere near enough to avoid gangrene/tetanus/blood-poisoning, but it sounds like the right thing to do, and that's probably good enough for the DM.

That's... actually pretty good. I'm going to attempt that. Thanks.

Just to finish however, in rl if this happened I'm screwed?

>no magic
>getting shit on in-game
>"literally me"

wtf game are you playing

>if this happened I'm screwed?
I have no clue, so probably.

It sounds like he's playing a ttrpg version of one of those "stuck in a fantasy world/MMO" animes that are all the rage these days.

You can just research historical medicine. Antibiotics are a recent invention.
1) For minor wounds, simply cleaning them thoroughly goes a long way toward reducing the chance of infection. ANY antiseptic chemical also helps, including your classic go-to of pure(ish) alcohol.
2) For a major wound, like a crushed limb, amputation may be the only reasonably course of action. A serious wound to the head or torso is probably a "clean it out, bandage it, and hope for the best" situation.
3) Cleanliness. Can't emphasize this enough. The biggest contributor to the horrors of traditional medicine was that they didn't KNOW how germs worked. They didn't clean their tools adequately, they re-used bandages and linens, they didn't use anti-septic chemicals, etc.

Healing potions don't resolve status effects, you need cure potions for that.

So long as you can properly clean the wound and not leave it open to further infection, you should be good so long as it doesn't get into your bloodstream by nicking a major blood vessel.

Spider web works too and make sure not to use sinew or anything animal based to stitch the wound closed. It rots and has predictable results.

In modern times no, a heavy dosage of antibiotics and some days in the hospital should be enough. In older days, yes because there was no way to treat the deeper infection and it would probably evolve into gangrene or blood poisoning which had no cure beyond amputation or leeches/bleeding.

Immediately healing up the wound would go a long way against any infection to say the least

Romans knew that boiling wine was good for cleaning wounds, not that they understood exactly why that was.

Boiling wine or any other alcoholic beverage IIRC was pretty decent after cleaning the wound immediately

Actually...
Okay, time for some modern science and how it relates to ancient medical practices. Dr. Merrick recently invented a cure for sepsis - combine an anabolic steroid with vitamin C. Yes, its that simple, but regular doses of vitamin c don't work since the normal absorption pathways have been wrecked, as sespsis is basically a lethally acute case of scurvy and scavenges those pathways for remnants of vitamin c. The anabolic steroid forces absorption of the vitamin c (and will actually force absorption of a lot of things, which is where he got the idea to combine it with vitamin c after doing sepsis research).
Anyways, there's an old Jewish (and also Chinese) recipe for "long life". Take the testes of a young bull, slice them, and steam them, making sure to capture the steam. Add to dandelion tea, or orange juice (Sephardic, aka Spanish, variant of the recipe). Now, the steam method is a primitive extraction of Taurine, which is a weak anabolic steroid, and dandelion is a source of vitamin c. Regular doses will have approximately the same effect over time as the modern method, accounting for the inefficiency of the taurine extraction and the inefficiency of absorbing the medicine via the digestive tract.
So there you have it.

Hey that's in the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, I live right by it.

Honey is a natural antibiotic. The right type of maggots eat only necrosis and secrete bactericides. Copper has bactericidal proprierties. Get the strongest spirit, make the wounded chug half of it and the wound the other half. Boiled wine mixes the boiled water with some alcohol which also kills microorganisms.

>In older days, yes because there was no way to treat the deeper infection and it would probably evolve into gangrene or blood poisoning which had no cure beyond amputation or leeches/bleeding.
anyone who wants to experience these problems in-game should check out Harnmaster.

No magic, primitive medicine? Well you can't.

You die. Sorry.

Clean out the wounds with boiling water

>Clean out the wounds with boiling water
If you enjoy second degree burns, sure.

Would you rather have second-degree burns or infection?

Shink down and enter the body to fight it.
lore fetish people will love it

Survival fag here.
honey has so much sugar that it disinfects wounds by stripping the fluid out of bacteria by osmosis. This is why it self preserves.
acids, like citric acid or vinegar, are very anti bacterial and why they use acid to preserve food.
salt of course kills bacteria as per honey and is used for preserving like vinegar.
dog saliva is anti bacterial. That's one stage of why they can eat poo and not get ill. The second side is their highly acidic bowels.
garlic and onions are also anti bacterial. Not sure why on this one.
Burn filthy wounds then keep them dry to try and stem infection.
really don't let any wounds get moist.

Basic stuff that should be readily available in your non magical setting.

alcohol, some plants can have mild antibiotic effects, like garlic, honey, and that's pretty much it.

washing the wound with clear water for a couple minutes can greatly reduce the chance of infection and is the first treatment that you can apply.
planet of the apes

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot_therapy>maggot

>Planet of the Apes RPG
I never knew I wanted that until now

Better than dying of gangrene

OP, get some fucking soap while you're at it

>planet of the apes
>monkeys develop their brains
>keep flinging literal shit

Depends on how you got the infection or disease, but immediately healing and open wound is going to prevent a lot of complications during the healing process that would normally be fatal.

People traditionally treated bleeding wounds by rubbing dirt into it, and there's actually some evidence to support it's usefulness as promise first aid. There's actually many species of fungus growing in soil that naturally produce antibiotics, and some clay filled earth is rich in metal ions that can act as antiseptics. It isn't going to save you from a deep wound contaminated with feces, and is generally inadvisable due to the (surprisingly low) possibility of secondary infections, but it is a traditional method of first aid that you might be able work from

Boiling water creates a large burn area. Burns are extremely prone to infection because the skin has been destroyed. It's essentially a massive open wound with the addition of compromised circulation. If you didn't have an infection before, you sure as fuck do now. And if you had an infection before, it just became 10x as severe. In a pre antibiotic and sterile field setting you are looking at nearly 100% fatality. Amputation is your only hope and even that has a very low success rate. You will most likely die.

*boiled
Boiled water, you dump truck, not boiling water.

Clean and wash the wound thoroughly. Scrape or cut away any infected tissue. If there is any disinfectant available, make sure to use it. (I prefer hydrogen peroxide, iodine will also work, but alcohol will do in a pinch)

Treat the wounds as soon as you are able, but not during combat. The longer you leave the wound untreated, the sooner infection will set in.

Bandage the wound in cloth or gauss, you can use strips of clothing if nothing else is available. Remember to continue to clean and wash the wound and change the bandages regularly.

There is a good chance that you are fucked.

But you can do a few things to improve your odds.

-Proper hygiene, clean the wounds with boiled water and wear clean clothes, wash regulary.

-Rub stuff on it. As some anons pointed out, Garlic and strong alcohol are good candidates, but so is honey. I'd try clean water, then alcohol and making some sort of band-aid with garlic or honey.

-If you aint Bitch-made (and do not need full funtion of your limbs), try burning it out with a hot iron, but this is pretty much your last chance ditch, because afterwards you will have to deal with a sizeable burn wound.

In general you wan't to clean it as fast as possible, also invest in good protection.
If your enemy pulls shit like that, consider just burning down the place.

If the wound is deep, you may need to apply suction (using a straw or reed if nothing else is available), or worse, dig any dung or dirt out of the wound with whatever is availible. (Make sure whatever you use to remove the filth is sterile, even if you only wash your hands before digging it out with a fingernail)

Of course, none of that means anything if you can't stop the bleeding. In order to staunch the flow of blood, make sure to tie a tourniquet tightly. (Some people say you shouldn't tie it too tight cause you will get gangrene, but they've never seen anyone about to bleed out. You can loosen it later, in an hour or two)

If a tourniquet doesn't work, use fire. Give you're patient something to bite onto. If they pass out from shock, they might die, so do everything in your power to keep them conscious. You may need to cauterize an artery or vein directly, or seal it off with a clamp, especially if its a leg wound.

That's ridiculous. Send a lab a sample of the coagulant, I'm calling your bluff.

The only thing I'm not really sure about is how to remove foreign objects from a body. You really need a surgeon for that sort of thing. You have to take into account blood loss and risk of infection when considering triage, i.e., how far it is to the nearest hospital or local clinic/ witch doctor.

In the modern era, we often consider leaving it in if the blood loss is not too severe. But like you said, without antibiotics, the risk of infection is pretty severe.

If you do decide to remove it, don't pussy foot around. Assumming a small object, just give it one firm tug. Don't pull it so hard it snaps.

If its a large object, like a piece of rebar, give it 2 or 3 hard tugs. Don't stop during the removal to see if you've opened an artery, just keep pulling and deal with the fallout after.

Generally you will know if you've pulled to hard or ripped open the wound by the screams of the patient.

Keep a steady hand, and remember: if you don't do anything, he is dead anyway. You can do no harm by attempting to intervene.

Your typing style is extremely obnoxious

One last thing:

If the wound has any sort of puss or boils, or looks as if the flesh around it is tight, you might need to lance the infection. Lancing is risky because it might spread the infection, so make sure to pour disinfectant on it immediately afterwards and have some cloth to absorb the fluids. Generally you should only lance a wound when the infection looks severe and does not look as if it will heal on its own. (Chances are if you have pustules the wound is already infected, lancing it properly will do no further harm)

Which is why you use line spacing to separate your paragraphs when there is no way to indent them.

Chicken noodle soup and sprite

I could make soap I guess. Just kill an animal and remove fat, or I need something else?

>honey has so much sugar that it disinfects wounds by stripping the fluid out of bacteria by osmosis. This is why it self preserves.
>acids, like citric acid or vinegar, are very anti bacterial and why they use acid to preserve food.
>salt of course kills bacteria as per honey and is used for preserving like vinegar.
>dog saliva is anti bacterial. That's one stage of why they can eat poo and not get ill. The second side is their highly acidic bowels.
>garlic and onions are also anti bacterial. Not sure why on this one.
>Burn filthy wounds then keep them dry to try and stem infection.

Jesus fucking christ, what are you, a witchdoctor? None of this shit is likely to be true.

Soap requires lye, lye is actually kind of complicated to make. Also, lye is not a disinfectant. Most disinfectant soaps use alcohol.

Alexander the great got injured in almost every single battle he fought in. This stupid "nick your finger and your dead without antibiotics" meme needs to fucking die.

Alexander the great had the best personal physicians on the planet

>honey has so much sugar that it disinfects wounds by stripping the fluid out of bacteria by osmosis. This is why it self preserves.
>acids, like citric acid or vinegar, are very anti bacterial and why they use acid to preserve food.
>salt of course kills bacteria as per honey and is used for preserving like vinegar.

>Jesus fucking christ, what are you, a witchdoctor? None of this shit is likely to be true.

Do you literally live under a rock and never cooked before in your life ?

Not that guy, but I can tell you the honey thing actually is true. Don't know about any of the rest though

Hmm. I could try making basic alcohol then.

This better be fucking bait.

I can confirm the vinegar and garlic

Herbal medicine - not very successful but better than nothing - or cauterise the wound - would lead to extensive scarring. Or simply treat with salt water as an antiseptic.

Check out "Where there is no doctor" for a manual in third world shithole disease prevention.
hesperian.org/books-and-resources/

Honey, acid and salt is at least partially true, they are bactericidal *in food*. I doubt honey is effective as wound treatment, and salt would hurt like hell, but maybe acid could work. (Diluted, obviously, but if it's a non-technological society they won't have high concentration acid anyway)

I have never heard about the dog saliva thing, but it seems questionable at best, probably dangerous precisely because dogs eat nasty shit all the time. Garlic and onion are not bactericidal, that's a common misconception (folk remedy). Cauterizing wounds is a thing, but burns heal slower and are a huge infection risk even today, so it's not something to take lightly.

As a biochemist I can tell you this is nonsense

They're all true, you dip. Garlic juice especially is known to be a good antimicrobial agent. Honey I can understand you not quite believing, as different types of honey have differing levels of effectiveness and it seems somewhat counterintuitive to introduce a sugar-rich substance into your body, but even that goes beyond the simple task of killing bacteria due to osmosis and actually EXPEDITES the healing process. Before you go spouting off what you perceive to be a simple folk remedy when the plants and substances themselves have actually been studied to inhibit bacterial growth, and in the case of honey even seeming to be able to prevent resistant strains from forming with high enough concentration, take the time to do a quick second glance on a search engine of your choice to prevent you from appearing as a bubble-blowing double faggot in the future.

Well that was a tad harsh.

there is one minor problem with this rubbing dirt in the wound policy

honey is so dry that bacteria can't survive in it and so it can act as a disinfectant, but putting it on a wound can give it humidity making it a festering ground for bacteria.
It is useful to treat wounds as a makeshift antibiotic, but you must be careful in how you use it.

dog saliva is antibacterial, more than our saliva, but also full of bacteria. If you have a clean wound it's better to avoid dog saliva, but if it's been smeared with poop, or just soil then having a dog lick you is beneficial. In absence of a dog your own saliva is better than nothing .

Salt does kill bacteria, for the same reason as honey, but it also damages your tissue. Better avoid that one.
Vinegar and lemon juice are usful though. In fact you can "cook" things in either. Submergea slice of meat or fish in vinegar or lemon juice for some hours and its safe to eat.

Garlic has powerful antibacterial properties. And also pesticidal properties. it's antibiotic properties are also useful when eaten as food. Along with a bunch of other stuff. Eat garlic, it's good for you.
Onion is a less potent version of garlic.
There are also other plants with antibiotic properties, and plants with coagulant properties, and various other benefits.

here OP, read this
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC88925/

>modern science
No, that's bullshit hippy pseudo-science. Fuck off with that facebook """""""science"""""""" garbage before you kill more children with preventable diseases.

Woah Woah give the man the whole story.
Resident nurse fag here. The vitamins c was given at a high dose IV with corticosteroids and thiamine. It's not just eat an orange.

The first step is treating this like wilderness first aid. A wound doesn't automatically become septic. Soap and water are very efficient for a start. Alcohol should not be used in the wound but for sterilizing instruments.
Clean the wounds, clean bandages daily and amputate if needed. Other user is right you don't have to solve the problem just give enough to the dm that he believes you have.

Lastly some plants have antiseptic properties. And ancient medicine wasn't all dumb. Maggots and bloodletting have a place in modern ln medicine. Also try not getting stabbed or if your dm is going to be a dick then you need to start poisoning water supplies, and your own biological warfare.

So did no one stop to think that if the world has this kind of understanding of microbiology, they'd probably have developed antibiotics?

as other Anons have said
properly cleaning and washing the wound etcetera, see here
I personally would go with escalating the affair.
and/or
Digging my own pit traps.
Employing fire, chemical, bio-
in fact I'd just start working my way through the Geneva Convention.

Have you considered rounding up some of the locals and using them to check for traps?
a peasant, a bit of rope and a ranged weapon, might solve your trap problem.

If you want to give details, I'll put on my "Dorf Fort over kill" hat and see what I can come up with

Wash it with water and soap

If you want to use a poultice or something, use mashed raw onion.

Okay, I will go and share what happened:

Me and the other players were in a plane, going on a trip. Suddenly we got hit by a mysterious energy, blacked out and woke up naked on an island.

So basically we start stripped naked. DM tells us that everything we have we will have to craft or scavenge. He is a fan of survival games and wanted to make something based on that.

So we start by grabbing materials, making some stone age tools and shelter. Pretty soon we ran into wild animals (like the entire fauna wants us dead for some reason), then native cannibals, then the 'crack boys', a group of psychos who weared rags and syringues. Now we are fighting the 'dung boys', a group that seems to idolize disease.

We still haven't got an infection (one of our boys got hit but he resisted), but after the hit we started discussing what to do if he had contracted it.

Don't get hit

Sterilise all wounds with alcohol and fire as quickly as possible after they are obtained

You're probably still likely to get an infection or blood poisoning, but those are all the measures you can take. Guerrila tactics are a bitch specifically because they just fuck you over.

If you don't already know how to identify plants with antibacterial properties, then chances are you're just gonna add a second poison to your system.

Wash out the wound with the strongest proof alcohol you have. Close it with gunpowder.

It probably won't work, you're probably gonna die or end up a shrivelled wreck, but them's the breaks when you fight the Việt Cộng.

Enjoy your tetenus

Don't try any old-style cures unless you really know what and why you are doing, because the wrong leaf rubbed into a wound can make things worse, and the wrong dirt rubbed into a wound will literally fucking kill you

For future reference, including important information in the OP question like it being a modern setting with no magic is how you avoid looking like a complete and utter retard and also not waste everyone's time.

These things are literally grade school chemistry/biology

Where do you live that you don't know these things?

I guess. But it also gives people a chance to imagine, which is good right?

Don't make excuses. It doesn't make you look less stupid, quite the opposite.

Geez.

>None of this shit is likely to be true
>likely
So you're saying you're a fucking retard who has no idea what they're talking about and just assumes whether something is true or not based on your feels and incredulity.
I'd say how embarrassing but you may be too stupid for any self-awareness for shame or embarrassment.

>How do you treat disease without antibiotics? Our enemies are using bolts and traps coated in filth and human waste.

As in like, legitly, "back in the day"?

Well, you suffered and your own natural immune system either fought it off... or you died. And quite often there were lasting effects afterwards even if you DID recover.

First aid still helps though. It's not so much "magically curing" where you get back hit-points, but it makes the following infection and risk of death a little bit better.

First off, stemming the blood loss helps fight off immediate shock. This is straight up removing "bleed counters".

Then clean the wound. That means physically scrapping out any material you can. The LESS poison/shit in your system the easier it will be to fight off. Dosage makes the drug.

Various "poultices" and "healing salves" acted as antiseptics, which would help with infection. Like Witchhazel. As a natural antiseptic (huh, and some natural antibiotic aspects...) If you spread it on a shit stick wound, the antiseptic will hopefully kill off some of the bugs in the shit.

Then closing the wound with bandages or sewing it back up helps protect it from further infection, and clots the blood flowing out once you take off the tourniquet or remove pressure.

And all of that will still be pointless sometimes if the weak-ass low constitution characters can't fight off a little bug.

>a fucking retard who has no idea what they're talking about and just assumes whether something is true or not based on your feels and incredulity.
>may be too stupid for any self-awareness for shame or embarrassment.
This is also known as "the average American."

This is Veeky Forums, we call out retards out of the goodness of our hearts so they can learn, if you want a self-sabotaging safespace there are better sites for it.

>americans REEE!
OBSESSED

Unfortunately, these days you can't do that without newfags desperate to fit in screeching about reddit, especially /pol/fags which is ironic since they've brought in the biggest ever wave of reddit newfags from the_donald or whatever it's called. You reap what you sow though and I've already seen numerous posts over there regretting the newfag takeover.

How do you know the poster is american?

>How do you treat disease without antibiotics?
we will find out within our lifetimes

The CDC says we are almost out if antibiotics that diseases have not developed resistances towards

Because they're a fucking retard who has no idea what they're talking about and just assumes whether something is true or not based on your feels and incredulity and may be too stupid for any self-awareness for shame or embarrassment.

These are telltale signs of being an American. Though these symptoms can also indicate they're Australian or British, its less likely based on their typing style.

That's retarded. You cannot throw a nationality upon the air just because he said something stupid. There is a lot of nationalities here.