The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-04-24
TEAoHING NEW YORK POLICE.
Surgeons Telling Them How to Render
Prompt Aid to Injured Persons.

All towns and cities might well take
example from a series CT five First Aid
70 the Injured lectures. the first of
which was delivered TO two squads of
New York policemen. Thursday even
ing. When the course of lectures is COM
pleted, It will be repeated to the police
men OF other precincts. so that in the
course of time every policeman in the
city will have heard it. When po-
Iiceman has attended all the lectures he
will be examined BY DR. Morton, the
chief physician of the First Aid to the
Injured Society, and if he passes a sat
isfactory examination on what he has
heard, he will get n certificate setting
forth that he is competent to act in the
cases OF emergency which is the OBJ
ject of the society to provide against
The lectures are given to the police at
the expense of the society Attendance
upon them is compulsory.
In beginning his lecture, DR. Nichols
said that the man who stopped an ar
terry from bleeding saved life as posi-
lively Us it he rescued Il person from
drowning or from a fiery death Eff
teen minutes nearly always elapsed, he
continued, before an ambulance arrived
to convey the victim of an accident to
the hospital, and it was this fifteen
minutes which should be filed by po-
iiceman. 1t rs his duty TO apply the
first aid to the injured; the doctor will
apply the second. Scores of persons
die every year who could be saved were
they properly cared for in the interval
between the accident and the arrival of
the surgeon. DR. Nichols told his
hearers that they must above all things
be cool in the emergencies under con-
sideration. An excited man does HARM
while the cool man does the right thing
at the right time. The lecturer then
displayed the chart of d skeleton, and
proceeded to impart sufficient knOwl-
edge of anatomy to enable his listeners
to know how to stop a hemorrhage.
Two policemen barred their arms, and
each of the others in turn pressed on
the artery at the inside of the upper
part of the arm. in order to be able
when necessary to stop bleeding from
wound in the hand or forearm. The
lecturer told the policemen to frequent
~ feel each his own pulse so as 20 get
acquainted with the feeling, in order
that he might know where an artery
was even if the flow of blood was feeble
He then told them how TO stop bleed
ing of the arm near the shoulder by
pressing key in the hollow space in
the shoulder behind the collar bone,
and how, in case of a cut on the leg, to
rest the leg on a chair so that the pres
sure of its own weight on the large rear
artery would stop the blood from flow
ing. He cautioned them not to permit
a man who had lost much blood to
make the least motion, as motion called
for an increased action of the heart.
The speaker also told how to distin- |
guish by the color and flow between ar
.erial and venous blood
In conclusion, the lecturer warned the |
policemen that he would question them |
1n the next lecture on what he had talk |
I'd about, and would expect them to |
designate the modes of stopping hemor-
'hage by pressing the arteries in differ |
mt parts of the body.