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Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

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Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#51

Post by tharkun__ »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #48
tharkun__ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people "manifest" and somehow don't wonder why randomly "it works" or "doesn't work". "Must've done something wrong while manifesting this time :shrug:" :facepalm: !!!!!1111eleven

Having the confidence to believe that you are able to do something almost certainly makes it more likely that you'll do it. Its bullshit but it probably works unless its for basically impossible things. You can manifest a promotion if you believe in yourself and work hard (and have an idea that your boss maybe likes you). People are also not so bad at predicting things, you aren't going to manifest something that you…

Oh I'm all for people having confidence in themselves. That's what religion is all about (except for the population control aspect).

If someone uses religion (or manifesting) to go down the path of "god helps those that help themselves", all the power to them! (as long as they don't make me believe in it)

I really am talking about people like that one radio moderator I was thinking of when making the comment: was "manifesting" all day yesterday so that someone would win the x-thousand dollars in the contest on their show this morning. Was "manifesting" getting tickets for Taylor Swif as well recently. Stuff like that. Like you said, all just manifesting "lottery ticket" type stuff. Magical thinking basically. Just "sit around and manifest and it'll happen". That's the :facepalm: stuff.

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#52

Post by xelamonster »

dotancohen wrote: post #26
Etheryte wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, I was taught that instead of the metabolic waste, the issue was the cold blood from extremities quickly cooling down the internals once allowed to circulate freely. Do you have any references for this?

What it's worth, we were taught the same thing about people crushed under e.g. rubble in combat medic training 20 years ago. And the same consideration applies to removing a tourniquet that had been in place for over two hours as well.

So what does that actually look like in practice, lifting the piece of rubble an inch at a time? How slowly would you release a tourniquet in that situation?

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#53

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #45
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people wouldn’tve been doing it if it hadn’t worked Now do trepanation and corpse medicine. Like, look around you. We’re a stupid species. Not consistently. But a lot. We’ve always been a bunch of apes banging around.

I don't think its smart to act like we are somehow at the pinnacle of human knowledge and nothing we've done before can be more effective than what we know works now.

> don't think its smart to act like we are somehow at the pinnacle of human knowledge and nothing we've done before can be more effective than what we know works now

Sure. Population growth is exponential. Deifying ancient knowledge is over-attributing knowledge to when we had little in both knowledge per person and persons per se.

Sanctifying traditional medicine means you’re out of ideas. You aren’t bad. But move on.

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #46
robbiep wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without being overly condescending, you do realise that most of the things that have been done throughout history, along with many we still do, are the result of cultural practice and have no evidence base whatsoever? Whilst 1956 seems to be a fairly late date to stop what would seem in the surface to be a counter intuitive practice, 80 years earlier blood letting was still in vogue

I don't understand though. Someone else brought up trepanation, but pre-modern humans lived in environment where they banged there head around a lot and it may have led to better outcomes for some people to get a hole in their skull so they retained it as a cultural practice. Why would a bunch of people decide, up until 1950 or so, that it was a good idea to rub snow into your feet when they were frostbitten just bec…

Most of them died!

We didn’t bother recording deaths because unless you were rich it didn’t matter. It still doesn’t. Who died in South Sudan today? We don’t know. We will never know.

It’s stupidly false to project modern standard into ancient cultures. Even the concept of cartography is anthropologically new.

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#55

Post by m463 »

grugagag wrote: post #44

When I was a kid we’d be spending a whole day playing in snow. When we’d come home in the evening with ice on the shoes, hair and cold hands and feet - but not as bad as getting real frost bites - would have a little warm up. My grandmother taught me to wash my hands with cold water at first then gradually add warm water. I still remeber cold water felt warm on frozen hands. Also many times when my hands were cold I’…

I keep my shower at the same temperature.

In the morning it feels hot.

But after hiking on a cold (not freezing) day the water feels SCALDING.

I suspect there are actually two "hot" shower types:

- the actual scalding shower with physical damage

- the "scalding" shower which is actually skin-temperature-sensor overload that is more psychological. It is more a accustomed temperature difference thing.

but below freezing / with frostbite, I have no idea.

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#56

Post by notatoad »

crazygringo wrote: post #27
schiffern wrote: post #18

Perhaps it got started with people misunderstanding / misremembering drying off by rubbing snow on wet skin. Being wet in cold conditions can be a death sentence so you need to dry off quickly, and this is one of the recommended methods. https://www.ncexped.com/drying-off-snow/

Oh wow, that's counterintuitive until you remember that snow basically works like a sponge. So as long as it starts out cold enough and you're quick enough, the snow can soak up water before it melts and gets you wet all over again.

i've never heard of people doing this to skin or clothes, but i know it's a thing for dogs and horses - you rub snow on their feet after a stream crossing, and the dry snow pulls the water out of their fur.

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#57

Post by cperciva »

xelamonster wrote: post #52
dotancohen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What it's worth, we were taught the same thing about people crushed under e.g. rubble in combat medic training 20 years ago. And the same consideration applies to removing a tourniquet that had been in place for over two hours as well.

So what does that actually look like in practice, lifting the piece of rubble an inch at a time? How slowly would you release a tourniquet in that situation?

I'm not a medical doctor, but my understanding is that in the scenario of "patient's limb has been trapped/crushed for an extended period and can now be freed" you're supposed to tourniquet off the limb before freeing it.

This helps both for delaying reperfusion issues until the patient can be in the hospital with IV lines in place, and also in case there's an injury which could cause massive blood loss (since a trapped limb is inherently one which is hard to inspect for injuries).

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#58

Post by graeme »

grugagag wrote: post #44

When I was a kid we’d be spending a whole day playing in snow. When we’d come home in the evening with ice on the shoes, hair and cold hands and feet - but not as bad as getting real frost bites - would have a little warm up. My grandmother taught me to wash my hands with cold water at first then gradually add warm water. I still remeber cold water felt warm on frozen hands. Also many times when my hands were cold I’…

I think those are two different phenomena:

1. When your hands are really cold they aren't ready for warm water. If you start with cold water and warm it up you will figure out what your hands can handle and get to the point where you're safely adding heat. You might find the cool water is actually warmer than the outside of your hand to the touch.

2. If you hold snow blood rushes to the hand and the pumping feeling produces the sense of warmth

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#59

Post by DiscourseFan »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #54
DiscourseFan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand though. Someone else brought up trepanation, but pre-modern humans lived in environment where they banged there head around a lot and it may have led to better outcomes for some people to get a hole in their skull so they retained it as a cultural practice. Why would a bunch of people decide, up until 1950 or so, that it was a good idea to rub snow into your feet when they were frostbitten just bec…

Most of them died! We didn’t bother recording deaths because unless you were rich it didn’t matter. It still doesn’t. Who died in South Sudan today? We don’t know. We will never know. It’s stupidly false to project modern standard into ancient cultures. Even the concept of cartography is anthropologically new.

Most people trepanned with pre-modern medicine in the regions quoted below did not die, "It is a well-documented procedure in Oceania and Africa well into the twentieth century, with an estimated survival of more than 90%. There is good documentation of the tools used and of the antiseptic precautions regularly taken by witch doctors." [0]

And by that logic we know that these procedures must've worked since they didn't kill all the people the were used on, hence they were passed down for generations and survived to the modern era for us to scrutinize!

Now was it just chance or did they actually have something effective to them? There are a number of modern medicines derived from traditional practices[1], not to mentioned thousands of documented medicinal herbs that are understudied and difficult to cultivate (like the Monotropa Uniflora [2] for example). But we help ourselves little by fulling ignoring the possibility of their effectiveness. In any case, its not as if any of our medical practices we employ today does not have its source in traditional medicine, its just we can critically engage with those practices and attempt to develop something out of them with evidence-based trials. But a paradigm shift in thinking about medical practice won't happen if one always makes the same assumptions about what works and what makes people healthy. Examining these traditional/folk practices can help us do so.

[0]https://www.scielo.br/j/anp/a/rsfbjBsF9RFVgMz3DwzsnkC/?lang=... [1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6273146/ [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora#Uses

Re: Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)

#60

Post by DiscourseFan »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53
DiscourseFan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its smart to act like we are somehow at the pinnacle of human knowledge and nothing we've done before can be more effective than what we know works now.

> don't think its smart to act like we are somehow at the pinnacle of human knowledge and nothing we've done before can be more effective than what we know works now Sure. Population growth is exponential. Deifying ancient knowledge is over-attributing knowledge to when we had little in both knowledge per person and persons per se . Sanctifying traditional medicine means you’re out of ideas. You aren’t bad. But move…

See my above comment
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