# Survival > Bushcraft Medicine >  Diagnose an infection?

## Glockster

After playing with my "Son's" new toy I started thinking, This is good enough to see see bacteria and viruses. Granted I have not tried this with his microscope YET! but it is has 900x and 1000x is what I have used before at the hospital. 

The one I got my Son is like that one below but Costco has them for $18.99 bucks! I got mine in the local Costco but don't see it one their website.
http://instantoys.com/meade-28piece-...191-p-193.html

They have a better one for $250 but it does not look too EMP friendly and needs power to function.

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/scienc...ngbacteria.pdf

More oil immersion info
http://www.suite101.com/content/view...mersion-a62401

Google what each virus and bacteria looks like, print and keep it handy in the event you need it for reference. Can you say tribe Doctor LOL

Just some possibilities on the cheap... I'll let you know when I have more time IF it works as well as I think it could.

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## your_comforting_company

I shoulda sent you a swab of my thumb, but you might not want to play with flesh eating bacteria "around the house"...

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## Glockster

WOW! Do you have that? I would love to see what it looks like but I think we would both end up on a list somewhere!

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## Justin Case

he has this ! http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...ad.php?t=13482

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## Glockster

your_comforting_company: OMG! is your thumb still messed up? Are your hitch hiking days over? IF it is still messed up my goto liquid of choice is Colloidal silver. Silvadene cream is the about same stuff in an ointment form, it's used in burn units to prevent infections and to lessen scars from burns. Good to keep both on hand for those cut, bleeding or infected moments...

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## your_comforting_company

Except where the infection killed flesh, I'm all better now.. Will take pics today as my "week after update". You can tell it did some damage, to be sure.

My youngest son has a microscope, but I don't think I'd be wanting to culture any bacteria or viruses in the field. I do think it would be a good idea, but really, if you are in the "wilderness" and fall ill, are you really any better off knowing you have staph, or flu? Unless you have meds with you, you'll still be screwed.
I do think the idea could be practical, but a layman, like myself would probably mess it all up and end up killing myself with the wrong meds.. or start a new pandemic.

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## Rick

Just curious. Even if you identify something under a microscope what will you do? Bacteria is going to show up on any culture. You won't be looking at just one but several. In order to determine which is causing a problem you'll have to culture it and you can't do that in the field. 

I'm just trying to understand the point of the exercise.

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## Glockster

Hey Rick

I could be missing something as I have not tried this but I was thinking if you can maintain about body temp and have the supplies (easy) it would be possible to figure out what foe has infiltrated... If the materials and temp is not maintainable(winter) for culture then maybe a postmortem exam of the human petri-dishes could render some slide worthy samples?

Knowing if the infection is a virus, bacterium or fungus can tell a person about preventing contamination and or spreading even if treatment were not possible.

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## canid

bacterial identification is *NOT* simple.

further, that first microscope posted is a toy. it is sold in the toy section for a reason.

if you want a good budget scope: http://store.amscope.com/b100a.html is a pretty good bet. i've owned an AmScope for years and it's great.

btw: viewing anything over about 800x without a spring oil objective and immersion oil is next to pointless. attempting to view inter-cellular structures without stains is outright pointless. even at 1200x some bacteria are hardly visible at all.

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## Rick

Canid is the guru here so I'll defer to him to keep me straight. 

First, a single culture is of no value. You have to take two or three sets in order to substantiate any results. You also have to be concerned with both cross contamination of foreign bodies as well as infection control so no one else can be contaminated and you don't contaminate any other equipment. Not a simple task. 

And, as Canid pointed out, just looking at a sample under the microscope isn't going to identify the culprit without stains to highlight them.

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## canid

i'm certainly not a guru, but i do love microbiology.

even the stains are only helpful for making basic determinations at a time [notably the well known gram's stain].

reliable identification often requires highly specialized procedures such as PCR to amplify genetic material for comparison against known organisms.

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## crashdive123

> i'm certainly not a guru, but i do love microbiology.
> 
> even the stains are only helpful for making basic determinations at a time [notably the well known gram's stain].
> 
> reliable identification often requires highly specialized procedures such as PCR to amplify genetic material for comparison against known organisms.


The blue dress?

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## Glockster

Guys,
From your posts I would have to figure you never clicked on my "More oil immersion info" link as it reads similar to your responses. Yes it is a toy! You will notice in my first post I stated the it is a *toy*... No I have not tried it with the *toy*... and Yes there is more to it some of which is shown in link. Nice Amscope link, I have been fortunate to use higher end microscopes that where hospital or university property to do such *NOT* simple tasks including spring oil objective, immersion oil, targeted culture mediums and assortment of dyes. I will hesitate with future posts until they are beat down proof and help you guys beat down member posts with what I'm a "GURU" at until we stop the flow of ideas.

Thanks!

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## Rick

Ah, you took it wrong. No one is beating you down. It's called discussion. You put out your ideas and I put out mine. If they conflict that's okay. People have differing views. It doesn't mean you're right or wrong and the same with me. It's just differing ideas. I'd hope we can debate things in an objective fashion. As I said earlier, I'm just trying to understand the point of the exercise.

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## Justin Case

I read that it was a toy he was referring to in the first post,  I think its an Interesting idea,  albeit over my head,,,,  LOL

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## rwc1969

I think it's an intersting experiment Glockster, however flawed the gurus have proclaimed it to be.

In reality though, do doctor's perform cultures everytime you get an infection or sore thoat? Not typically they don't! They just give you an antibiotic and send you on your way, usually without proper instruction on it's usage. So, the whole point about needing 3 cultures and blah blah blah is kind of a moot point at best.

Antibiotics can be found in the wild. they can also be procured without high tech equipment. No, I don't know the exact process to procure them and I don't know the raw materials that can be utilized without procurement, or the correct dosage, yada yada yada.

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## Rick

> usually without proper instruction on it's usage.


You could always read the label on the prescription bottle...just sayin'.

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## rwc1969

The label doesn't tell you to eat yogurt, or to space the doses out evenly, it does tell you how many to take and to finish them all. It doesn't tell you that you will likely gain weight as a result of taking the antibiotics. It doesn't tell you that your immune system will be negatively affected and that you will be more prone to infection in the future either. Just sayin'! LOL!

But, for the most part, unless cultures are run, the administration of anti-biotics is just geusswork that is done by certified professionals. I can do guesswork myself.

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## Justin Case

No Need to really guess either,,   "Web MD" is pretty damn accurate,  I have diagnosed problems my mother was having on Web MD, and sure enough,  after a visit to her Doctor and Blood tests,,  Lo and behold,,,,  Same Diagnosis,,

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## Rick

I have to agree with your assessment, RWC. They most often do give it their best guess. The only difference between their guess and mine is they see those symptoms a dozen times a week and know what the most likely culprit is based on what is currently making the rounds. They only way I'd know that is by hearsay.

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## Beans

My Experience with a lifelong UTI due to trauma in SEA in 1970. 

Go see the Doc, verify infection, take prescribed pills. go back in a week with the same UTI, change pills, go back in a week, send urine to lab, get new pills, when culture come back get new pills to temporary solve the problem.

2-4 months later repeat, Tell Doc  What didn't work last time. Repeat anyway. They don't listen to you.  THEY ARE THE DOCS. It doesn't matter Civilian, Military, VA same experience

Unfortunately At this time I am drug resistance to a lot of drugs.
I am in a life long race to see if they can develope new drugs before I become resistence to all of them.

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## canid

> Guys,
> From your posts I would have to figure you never clicked on my "More oil immersion info" link as it reads similar to your responses. Yes it is a toy! You will notice in my first post I stated the it is a *toy*... No I have not tried it with the *toy*... and Yes there is more to it some of which is shown in link. Nice Amscope link, I have been fortunate to use higher end microscopes that where hospital or university property to do such *NOT* simple tasks including spring oil objective, immersion oil, targeted culture mediums and assortment of dyes. I will hesitate with future posts until they are beat down proof and help you guys beat down member posts with what I'm a "GURU" at until we stop the flow of ideas.
> 
> Thanks!



oh definitely; i'm a champ at half reading things before replying.

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## Justin Case

> oh definitely; i'm a champ at half reading things before replying.


Yeah,  Me too  :Blushing:

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## nell67

> I have to agree with your assessment, RWC. They most often do give it their best guess. The only difference between their guess and mine is they see those symptoms a dozen times a week and know what the most likely culprit is based on what is currently making the rounds. They only way I'd know that is by hearsay.


SO this quack at the local ER,instead of running the lab tests that Austins doc sent him there for,used his BEST GUESS,and declared Austins puking episodes (three days worth,with a fever)to be nothing more than air on his stomach,hellava,guess,coulda cost him his life if there had not been another doctor in town with cajones enough (female doc by the way) to call the er up and send him back for the tests that were ordered in the first place.

I personally don't lie their best guess method,it's not what we pay astronomical fees to get,we want real answers,NOT best guesses.

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## Rick

But that's what you get. It's not just doctors either. Have you ever taken your care to a mechanic and paid for two parts? They guessed wrong on the first one and installed a second. Ever had a repairman make a second trip to your house to fix (fill in the blank)? That's how it works. No matter what we use in our jobs it boils down to someone interpreting the results and making a decision as to whether something else needs to be done or whether solution A will fix it. 

It's unfortunate but we're all only human and we sometimes guess wrong. Doctors are no different. The difference is their wrong guess can have some terrible consequences but it's a fact of life.

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## beetlejuicex3

You are not going to identify viruses under a light microscope, they are too small.

You are not going to identify bacteria under a microscope without serious training and lots of equipment. 

If one were to swab a cut and put it under a microscope they would see many different bacteria most of which are normal skin throat or mouth flora.  It is very difficult to identify pathogens unless an abscess is drained, etc.

Further more, after you swab a disease carrying bacteria it has to be grown on different culture plates under a variety of conditions and gram stained to help identify what organism it is.  Is it coag - or +, catalse - or +, does it require chocolate auger, is it fermenting or nonfermenting, etc.  It takes a hospital lab 2-4 days to do this.

After the organism is ID'd they run sensitivities to see which antibiotics are effective againsit it, this takes 1-2 days too. 

The gram stain portion only takes a few minutes but it will only tell you if the organism is gram negative or gram positive.  

The best you could probably do at home was teach yourself how to gram stain a slide and possibly tell if the organism was gram positive or gram negative which may give some clues to the pathogen. Gram + organisms are usually staph or strep, occasionally enterococcus for example. 

Though sometimes gram + bacteria are ultimately diptheroids or coag negative staph which are not disease causing organisms under most conditions and contaminates.  You see the problem.

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## almostbarefoot

> SO this quack at the local ER,instead of running the lab tests that Austins doc sent him there for,used his BEST GUESS,and declared Austins puking episodes (three days worth,with a fever)to be nothing more than air on his stomach,hellava,guess,coulda cost him his life if there had not been another doctor in town with cajones enough (female doc by the way) to call the er up and send him back for the tests that were ordered in the first place.
> 
> I personally don't lie their best guess method,it's not what we pay astronomical fees to get,we want real answers,NOT best guesses.


No doubt.  Medicine is not what it used to be.  You sound like the best type of patient: one who won't settle for a nonsensical diagnosis without proof, or at least agreement with best-practice standards.  Gone are the days when you could blindly trust a physician's diagnosis and treatment regime.


http://www.paraknots.com

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