First Aid
| Published date | 01 October 1933 |
| Date | 01 October 1933 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3300600411 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
First
Aid
A
GUIDE
FOR
THE
POLICEMAN
By DR. BERESFORD
KINGSFORD
,
SOCIETY
has not been created by
man:
it
is anterior to
man,' 1and 'compassion is a necessary outcome of
social life
'2
says
Kropotkin;
so we must look among the
(so-called) lower animals for the dawn
of'
First Aid '. Among
them Bees and Ants present perhaps the greatest, and nearly
the oldest of social communities; and of Ants, Fore! wrote, ' if
they are slightly injured or rather unwell their companions
take care of
them:
on the other hand if they are badly wounded
or seriously
ill
they are carried away from the nest and left to
perish.' 3
After making many experiments Lubbock (Lord Avebury)
arrived at the conclusion that ' among Ants there are Priests
and Levites and good Samaritans as among men,' 4and further
that ' in these curious insects hatred is a stronger passion
than affection ' 5and he placed them next to man in the scale
of intelligence; a position denied them by the naturalists of
to-day as being far less teachable than apes and others.
Among vertebrate animals fish, frogs, and reptiles appear
to show affection towards their fellows and those who care
for
them;
and cobras are said to have been trained to act as
(amateur
?)
watch dogs.
But when we come to warm-blooded animals we find the
writings of great naturalists teeming with examples of First
Aid among them.
1Mutual Aid, p. 47. "Ibid. p.
51.
3
Lubbock
on Ants, Bees, and Wasps, p. 94. 4Ibid. p.
101.
Ibid.
p.
106.
458
FIRST
AID
459
Birds-the
old time offshoot evolved from
reptiles-are
conspicuous for fellow feeling and helpfulness.
Thus:
agander leads a blind goose to the water for a
drink and a swim and pilots her home
again;
successive
pairs of terns carry away over land and sea a comrade dis-
abled by
gunshot;
pelicans disgorge their fish to feed a cap-
tive companion; rooks overcome their fear of a gun to try
and help a wounded fellow
rook;
and a parrot attends his
wife in illness with all the solicitude and care of a born nurse.
The
same aptitude for rendering aid to fellow creatures is
found among mammals, from rats who feed and lead about
their blind comrades to the elephant who, when all other
means had failed to keep the little beggar still, held down her
calf for the performance of a surgical dressing.'
But the stories of sympathy, distress, and first aid
rendered among monkeys are too detailed to relate: they
must be read in full to be believed: suffice it to say that more
than once the sympathy shown by a monkey for a wounded
companion or child has been so human as quite to disarm the
hunter and make him resolve never again to shoot
anyone
of
them."
The
organization of first aid on the grand scale probably
dates from the time of the Crusades.
The
nine hundred years
history of the truly venerable priory of St. John reveals a long
running fight for the right to minister to the sick, wounded,
and enslaved.
It
started in Jerusalem as a religious refuge for
poor pilgrims with a ' sick
bay'
attached: somewhat like St.
Bartholomew's Priory and hospital about the time of Henry 1.
During the Christian occupation of Jerusalem I099-1I87
the Order was reconstituted and militarized, and its mem-
bers, now Knights Hospitaller of St. John, took up arms to
resist the Saracens. (The English offshoot was founded just
outside the walls of London about I I 00.) Whenthe chivalrous
Saladin took Jerusalem the knights were allowed to stay till
their sick could be moved safely; thereafter they withdrew
to Acre on the coast and the Order became
that
of St. Jean
1
Romanes'
Animal Intelligence, p. 399. 2Ibid. p.
475.
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