Book Review: Where There Is No Doctor

I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this book for you yet. Spoiler alert: It’s my favorite prepping book ever. Also, it needn’t even cost you a dime (although I do recommend buying the hard copy) because it’s offered as a free download.

Spice thinks this book should be in every prepper library. Read it too.

What’s this book about?

David Werner originally wrote this book as a guide for village health care workers in poor and/or rural areas. It’s aimed at a “You’re not well educated, but you’re not stupid” reader. Generally competent people who are trying to manage health care without the benefits of modern medical tools are a great match.

It’s an extremely practical guide that combines modern medical information with what can reasonably done with limited resources. To quote Werner, “Basic health care should not be delivered, but encouraged.”

What’s in the book

The book is intended first and foremost for village healers. It spends the first bit talking to them about how to be a good leader for helping people take care of themselves. This translates usefully to the medical specialist of a mutual assistance group.

Then the book addresses some confusions that seriously degrade care among many less medically educated people: How to evaluate home remedies. Disabusing myths. How to make a good examination. Common diseases that are often misdiagnosed Basic care principles.

There’s a drug section: How to heal without them, how to select them, measuring right amounts with simple tools like teaspoons, giving injections.

Want clear, useful diagrams on How To Do Things? This book’s got them.

We did a podcast about this book, you can listen to it HERE:

Then comes discussion of common problems

First aid gets some attention, and nutrition including nutritional diseases. One thing many preppers don’t consider is that many of our stored foods aren’t nutrient-dense. You can get away with that when you’re eating a Lot of such food. On smaller rations one ends up not getting enough of some things.

Prevention is highlighted throughout this book. Yay, David Werner! I consider lack of attention to prevention to be the single biggest flaw in our current health system, so I might be a bit biased here.

Lots of chapters address various systems, so you can flip the right spot on the book quickly when you know what bits broken to find out what to do about it. It’s all written very clearly and suggests things most people would actually be able to carry out. Sometimes there are tiers of suggestions: If you have access to a doctor or this medicine, try this.  If you don’t have that, here’s something else that could help.

Women’s health, pediatrics, and the elderly get special attention

Since problems associated with pregnancy and deaths in young children are the two biggest contributors to mortality in countries without extensive health care, this makes perfect sense. Family planning information is also clear, giving the options with their costs and benefits. 

My favorite part of the book

Not only does he provide good information on constructing a good medical kit in general, but there’s some wonderfully valuable information on specific drugs and their usage. The idea here is that the people using the book might be able to get modern drugs, but not the physician who knows how to prescribe them.

Various common forms of reasonably available drugs are described. The book tells what they’re used for, how much and in what form you should give it, important precautions. If you keep things like antibiotics, I propose that you absolutely need this kind of information, whether you get it here or elsewhere. This book is the most handy and useful format I’ve seen. 

I’ve used ideas from this book several times in developing posts for this site, because the needs of an isolated village have some things in common with any situation where health care access is limited. Besides, there is great basic information for anyone in this book.