Period Medicine Kit for the Trail

[Tsalagidave]

It is handy to have modern medicines for the occasion but since carrying around a bunch of modern stuff defeats the purpose of  what we are doing here, I figured that a functional period medicine kit is the best solution. I researched some original kits and found them to be a sometimes encased in a small box that fits easily in the knapsack. Mine is made fashioned after a period cardboard box containing a mix of original and modern reproduction items. Here is the listing of what I carry.

*Bottle of pain pills (Ibuproifn)
*Bay Rum (I made) disinfectant & deoderant
*Bottle of Cholera medicine (electrolytes) still used to treat Cholera.
*Petrolatum Tin (Vaseline)
*Small box of emetics
*Gauze and 1-2 packaged bandages.
*Steel snips
*Original 1850-60s era tweezers
*Instruction sheet.

The other medicines are throat losenges, stomach pills and a clever way to carry a bottle of Nyquil al with good period labels.

Hope you like them.

-Dave

[Caleb Hobbs]

Great job, Dave -- again. Are those bone-tipped tweezers?

[Mossyrock]

Bah!  You don't need all of that!  All you need are some semi-clean bandages and a bottle of "Ol' Stump Blower" corn likker.....for medicinal purposes, of course...   

[Advertising]

[Oregon Bill]

Don't forget a cartridge case full of blackpowder for snakebites!

Dave, I'm getting serious here. You really might need to be THE GUY who writes THE BOOK about this stuff. I've never seen such thorough kit.

[Professor Marvel]

A subject close to my heart -

From the point of view of the average citizen - most had very little knowledge of any medicinal practices,
unless they were fortunate enough to have paid attention to and learned from a family member or local who
happened to be an herbalist.

Most were woefully unaware of sepsis - thus even washing a wound was not common knowledge.
Most did understand "stopping bleeding" and bandages. However bandages were often reused without washing.

Some folks had some understanding of certain common poultices:
a tobacco or onion poultice could "draw out the poisons" - remeber grandma putting a slice of onion on your beesting?
A cabbage or sulfur poultice could "keep the wound clean". - sulfur was an early anti-biotic agent.
a mugwort or spanish moss poultice would "help it heal faster". - both herbs have natural antibiotic agents.
a poultice made with tea leaves will make a bleeding wound clot. - the tannic acid promoted clotting.

bad infections were generally lanced, opened, drained and washed with any alcohol one had.

When it comes to internal medicine, once again the herbalists had the everyday advice:
for pain: white willow bark tea - the salicylic acid was the basis for modern aspirin
for a purgative - swallow a chaw of tobacco - it will come out one end or the other. if the tobacco makes it "all the way through"
it was said to have a tendency to kill off internal parasites .
for fevers - willlow bark and prairie sage tea was often used
for toothache - oil of cloves applied directly, laudenum ,or extraction ( see the local blacksmith - really! )

Thus an intelligent and trained traveler might carry
- some prewashed (boiled, preferrably) bandages,
- a plug of tobacco
- a small packet of sulphur
- a small packet of white willow bark
- a small packet of prairie sage leaves
- a packet of tea
- a packet of mint leaves
- a stick of osha root
- a stick of licorice
- a small bottle of oil of cloves for toothache
- pint of the strongest spirits available

in the day, some would add a bottle of laudenum which was readily available from any pharmacist or doctor.

From the point of view of the Physician -
The Doctor of 1850 did not regularly carry that much in the way of actual medicine beyond what he expected to use on the specific patient.

You would normally find the following:
Ear Trumpet or Stethoscope
Folding Magnifying Glass
Lancets
eyedropper;
thermometer;
Small kit of Scalpels
Small selection of forceps and tweezers and scissors
A small sewing kit, using "catgut" sutures
Syringes and needles kit for injections
Syringe for Lavage
sevveral sizes of Speculum
Ear "spoon"
Small kit of Probes
Possibly one or more "cupping" devices
perhaps several leather straps to use as tourniquets or restraints
Small number of opiate or morphine based ampules.
or ampules for "Cocaine and Adrenalin Solution"

"Modern" Antiseptics and Antibiotics were not available until after ca 1900 or later.

Surprisingly you would not find bandages and the sort of things you see in a modern EMT kit. Bandages were far to bulky for a Doctor to carry, and he would rely upon the patient's family to provide them. Cleanliness was optional, and Sterility was unheard of. Even up until the 1890's Doctors had to be vigorously encouraged to wash their hands between patients, and few bothered with alcohol sterilization.

A great deal would depend upon the exact era, local advances in technology, and the Doctor's speciality - ie: A homeopath or Herbalist would most likely carry an assortment of their medicinals- especially basics such as early herbal antibacterials, powdered herbs to make a variety of poultices (ie drawing agents, clotting agents, etc) pain remedies such as Willow Bark, "Medicinal Brandy", Laudenum, and Opium.

If one had the opportunity to consult a Medicinal Practitioner, their portable drug kit typically held between 12 and 36 vials of perhaps 1 oz of a given powdered medicine.

In a Military Surgeon's Kit you would find a LOT of Opiate-based painkillers, lancets, scalpels, sutures, and an entirely separate kit of very large knives and saws devoted to amputations.

Doctors were not generally called in for birthings - that was handled by the Professional Midwife.

German Doctors (who made great advances in scientific studies and advances
of medicine based on herbal remedies) or other Herbalists might have a separate "Portable Apothecary" or drug kit typically holding any number of  vials of various powdered medicines.

They may carry other various tinctures or powders of things like Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Poppy, Wormwood, Mugwort, Cedar, Osha, Licorice, Blackroot,  various Mints, Elm, Cherry, the list goes on - it would be difficult to carry an entire Apothecary Shop on ones person, so each practitioner would choose for themselves.

One example I have found in a museum includes the following:
Soda-Mint;
Compound Cubeb;
Aloin Comp.;
Ferri Quinias et Strychniae Phosph.;
Ferruginous, Blaud's;
Pepsin;
Aconite Tincture;
Dry Thyroid Gland.
"ALOPHEN";
"ACONITE TINCTURE";
"GREY POWDER";
"PANTOPON";
"BROMURAL".

White willow bark as a strong tea or powder was a well known analgesic for centuries but was not produced as Aspirin ( acetylsalicylic acid) until 1899 by the Germans, and The first form of aspirin was in a packet of powder ( "take a powder") . "Modern" antibiotics were not available until 1928.

In case you have not noticed, Opium was the Panacea of the day from the 1800's until perhaps the 1930's. Opium was used for shortness of breath and cough in respiratory ailments such as tuberculosis, asthma and bronchitis.

Opiate Constipation was seen as a benefit, making it a major therapy in dysentery, cholera and any form of diarrhea. Opiate pain relief was sought for rheumatism and chronic pains, including neuralgia and sciatica and migraine. Its sedation and calming properties were used for sleep, hysteria(likely anxiety)and in some cases used to treat the mentally ill as it was seen as more humane than restraint or punishment. Opium’s ability to reduce the amount of sugar in the urine of diabetics also made
it one of the only treatments available until insulin was discovered.

Cocaine was a common stimulant, and was even an ingrediant in early Coca-Cola until it was replaced by Caffiene.

Morphine was extracted from the opium poppy in 1806 and codeine followed in 1832. Commercially produced oral morphine appeared in the 1820s and was promoted for use in pain, and as a substitute for those addicted to opium.

The hypodermic syringe was introduced in the mid-1850s, giving the physician the ability to administer a rapid-acting, accurately dosed agent to control pain, cough, shortness of breath, diarrhea and anxiety. This gave the doctor more control over the body of their patient and over the dose they were administering.

Unfortunately Doctors were costly, and thus many people turned to folks-healers, self-taught or "native" herbalists, and the Patent Remedy Hawker... such as myself...

yhs
Prof Marvel

[Oregon Bill]

Thanks for the clinic professor!I'd like to order a medium laudenum and Coke over ice for my lower back pain ...

By the way, we are leaving out some of the more colorful medical items that faded with the growth of medical knowledge in the 19th century. What about the spring-loaded fleam, for letting out a couple of quarts of blood? Where is the leech jar? The sugar of lead? The mercury based calomel for purging the foul humours? Remember Dr. Rush's famous prescription during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia: "Bleed and purge!"

 

[River City John]

Hochstetter Stomach Bitters was in production at least by 1858, plus similar kinds of paregorics to the laudenum containing opiates. All kinds of liniments were available that could double as primitive surface disinfectants. But your high alcohol content liquor could act as the same, as the Honored Professor has stated.


But, all you really need to do is slap hot iron to it.


RCJ

[Tascosa Joe]

Dave:
Your knowledge and kit just blow me away.  You have really cool gear.
T-Joe

[Don Nix]

Having grown up with grandparents who were born in the late 1800s , going to the doctor was not an option and home remedies were what fixed us up.
 If you had a bad cut, pour coal oil on it. and wrap it up in a coal oil rag. Unless the bone was showing it probably didnt need stitches.
 For the strep throat it was Turpentine and sugar. I gag even now when I smell turpentine, that was the nastiest tasting stuff youve ever had to swallow.I can tell you that "a little bit of sugar" does not help the medicine go down.
A croup rag ( with Vicks salve) around your throat and a heated  mustard rag  on your chest would clear up a cold over night.( I think I got better and went to school just so I didnt have to be doctored at night) either way it worked.
Sassafras tea in the spring to clean you out, and Blackberry brandy to stop you up when you scoured.
 Oil of Spike and Iodine for bad cuts and  Monkey Blood (mercurichrome) for scrapes.
 The best cure of all was a Razor strop for a bad attitude and behavioral problems.
 Applied liberally it will  make a good citizen out of a potential horses a$$.

[Oregon Bill]

Don, I'm sure glad I didn't have a mouth full of black cherry soda when I read your post!  

Boy, I sure remember mercurachrome and merthiolate. That stuff stung so bad, I took to underreporting reporting injuries.

[Tsalagidave]

Great post Prof. Marvel, it reminds me of my family recipe books that my family kept from the Creek and Cherokee reservations (ca. 1870-1910).  As a trained emergency response person, I have an OK understanding of medicine but I have nowhere near the expertise of an MD. That being said, I have been researching ancient to 1800’s era medicine for years and own a pretty extensive library of original science and medicine books spanning from the 1700s to 1890s. Here are some common myths about period medicine that I have been able to debunk from studying the pre-1860 texts alone.
•   (myth) The average person knew little about medicine. I own and have seen several examples of affordable pocket-sized medical manuals that are even printed “for classroom and family reference”. (*Note, literacy was remarkably high in the US. The vast majority of people could read, write and do mathematics.) For example, the manuals I’ve read cover treatments for choking, drowning/asphyxiation, decontaminating food and drinking water, treating parasites and even surgery by using methods that are astonishingly modern by comparison.
•   (myth) They did not know about cleanliness.  Time and again, the medical books I have read stress the importance on cleanliness because they knew that filth bred disease. My 1850s manual cites the importance of sick room temperature, ventilation and daily bathing of sick persons. The story about CW surgeons wiping off their scalpels on muddy boot heels is absolutely contrary to period medical training. Surgical instruments were cleansed in the same fashion as eating utensils were.  Gauze and bandages were well washed before use. (This helped but unfortunately did not sterilize.) They understood that infection worked on the same fermentation process as wine and cheese did which is very insightful and correct.
•   (myth) Not a lot of medicines were available to the average person.  The patent medicine industry was exploding in mid-1800s America. There was a vast abundance of affordable and legitimate medicines opened the public. Larger firms like Ayers even published yearly advertorial almanacs. Some were not so reputable as seen next.
•   (myth) These medicines did not work. Although there were large numbers of “Snake Oils” and “Panaceas”, there were many legitimate firms that produced remedies that successfully treated ailments. Examples of them were Neuralgia treatments (forerunner to modern Ibuprofin, asprin etc.); Vermifuge (successfully removed tapeworms and other gastrointestinal parasites), antiseptics (not called that yet) came in many forms for cleansing wounds and making poultices. Although narcotics such as cocaine and opiates were commonly found in many medicines, growing public concern about their harmful effects was also present. I have seen many patent medicine labels from the mid-1800s in the Library of Congress collection that assure buyers that there is "no harmful Cocaine or Heroin in this product".

The fatal flaws that contributed to high levels of disease and death came from their lack of understanding the concept of micro bacterial infection. Although cleaning medical instruments helped reduce infection, the lack of modern medical sterilization failed to eliminate all of the hazardous bacteria present. Also, the lack of understanding that insects bore disease and not “poisoned airs and vapors” left many open to infectious attack especially in tropical regions. Many people did simply take their chances with poor grooming skills and in consuming unpurified food and drink. Although people then had tougher immune systems by comparison to us, the results of large populations living in this kind of squalor would still be predictably disastrous.

Bill, Joe and Caleb, thanks for the kind words. (Yes, those are bone-tipped tweezers.)

I'm really impressed with the knowledge that the old timers like Don and Prof. Marvel have to share. Keep it coming.
 
-Dave

[Short Knife Johnson]

Outstanding.  Makes me laugh because I am at this very moment reading this post and waiting for my intravenous antibiotics to finish injecting themselves into my body.  Clindamyacin to be exact for a post surgery infection.  Delivered via a clever little device that employs a leadscrew to push the plunger of a mixing syringe.  Because I am doing this at home, my living room is awash in alcohol swabs, assorted bandages, etc.  The surplus from the goodie bags will be squirrelled away for future use.

I've had opportunity to read medical data from the late 1800's and early 1900's.  Interesting, entertaining, and sometimes terrifying. 

[Tsalagidave]

I've had opportunity to read medical data from the late 1800's and early 1900's.  Interesting, entertaining, and sometimes terrifying. 

I hear you Short Knife.  It makes me wonder what people 100 years from now will think about our use of chemotherapy. By the way, I wish you a speedy recovery.

-Dave

[Hangtown Frye]

And here I thought this was going to be about the surgical kit which Josiah Gregg mentioned in "Commerce of the Prairies" (1844)! 

Gregg was a physician who traveled along the Santa Fe Trail for his health, ended up becoming a fairly successful trader and wrote about his experiences as well.  During one of his early trips, a fellow pulled his rifle from his wagon muzzle first.  The hammer (obviously a percussion rifle) snagged on something, pulled back enough that when it was released it popped the cap, and shot himself through the arm.

Of course the wound festered, and the poor soul's friends finally decided that whether the victim liked it or not they had to deal with the wound.  It was so far gone when they finally held him down to look at it that they decided to amputate.  Unfortunately all that was available was a carpenter's saw and a Bowie knife.  Someone filed a finer set of teeth on the back edge of the carpenter's saw while another fellow whetted the Bowie to razor sharpness, and yet another fellow heated a bolt off one of the wagons in a fire.  The victim's arm was taken off in a jiffy with the saw and knife, and the red-hot bolt used to cauterize the wound.  The poor fellow was placed in the back of a wagon and they moved on (this was done during a "noon stop".) 

According to Gregg (who probably performed the amputation) the fellow rode his horse into Santa Fe a few weeks later, and healed up quite nicely "thus showing the superiority of hot iron over sutures", as he noted. 

So next time you're putting together your Trail Medicine Kit, don't forget the saw, Bowie knife and bolt to heat up in the fire!

Cheers!

Gordon

[Professor Marvel]

Regarding  cleanliness (or lack of it) I agree that there were numerous publications promoting thorough washing & etc, but these efforts were met with great derision by the so called medical professionals of the day.

In spite of Pastuer's proof that Germs existed and were actually the cause of disease in patients, there was great resistance to even simple washing.  "The Great Change to Cleanliness" was championed by Dr. Joseph Lister a friend and colleague of Pastuer, inventor of (yes)

This is a bit of a mystery to me, that on the one hand we have written chronicals from both letters and diaries going back as far as the mid to late 1600's wherin the writers relate collecting the cut-off ear, nose, or finger of a battle-field casualty;  rinsing them with wine, vinegar, or even urine ; then sewing them back on again with great success.

LISTERINE

"One hundred and thirty years ago, almost 50% of the patients undergoing major surgery died from infection. As the famous saying went, "The operation was a success, but the patient died."  In the 1870's, Lister was the first to treat wounds with dressings soaked in carbolic acid.  Lister, in agreement with Dr. Louis Pasteur, suggested surgeons wash their hands and sterilize their instruments before operating. "

" After significant resistance, British and American hospitals gradually adopted the sterile procedures promoted by Lister.  "

"Lister and Pasteur were personal friends who supported each other when viciously attacked by the medical establishment. 
When Pasteur was publicly honoured at age 70 by his medical peers,  he turned and bowed his head towards Lister, saying:
'the future belongs to him who has done the most for suffering humanity.' "

(emphasis mine)

yhs
prof marvel

[Tsalagidave]

Prof. You just gave me a great medical topic to hunt down. Do you have any period examples of medical professionals that opposed bathing? Every medical text of the 1840-60s that I have were written by doctors and none of them ever cited bathing as injurious to health. I know that the pioneers of microbiology such as Pasteur and Leewenhoek were initially criticized for their concepts in microbes (okay, and Lister for sterilization)but I have never encountered text from the mid 1800s attacking the practice of good hygiene by itself. I am interested in seeing the other side of the coin but I'm going to need your help on this one.

What publications are a good read on the subject?

Thanks

-Dave

[Professor Marvel]

Prof. You just gave me a great medical topic to hunt down. Do you have any period examples of medical professionals that opposed bathing? Every medical text of the 1840-60s that I have were written by doctors and none of them ever cited bathing as injurious to health. I know that the pioneers of microbiology such as Pasteur and Leewenhoek were initially criticized for their concepts in microbes (okay, and Lister for sterilization)but I have never encountered text from the mid 1800s attacking the practice of good hygiene by itself. I am interested in seeing the other side of the coin but I'm going to need your help on this one.

What publications are a good read on the subject?

Thanks

-Dave

>  Every medical text of the 1840-60s that I have were written by doctors and none of them ever
> cited bathing as injurious to health.

Whilst they did not openly criticize bathing, they definitely did not endorse it.

The problem is that the so-called Medical Scientists of the day had their own set beliefs and
Lister and Pasteur challenged those beliefs:
"He debunked the widely accepted myth of spontaneous generation"

and that's how the fight began

I offer for your entertainment the following:

A definitive (but brief) Article on the topic from
"Stanford University School of Medicine and the Predecessor Schools: An Historical Perspective "
by John L. Wilson, MD,

http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/html/chap5/chap5-sect6.html


An article in the NYT Published: October 5, 1913,  on the 25th anniversary
Copyright © The New York Times
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FB0710FE355F13738DDDAC0894D8415B838DF1D3


This most excellent article (complete with proper annotations) from THE JOURNAL OF BONE AND JOINT SURGERY
VOL. 49 B, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 1967
http://web.jbjs.org.uk/cgi/reprint/49-B/1/4.pdf

discusses the opposition Lister met at a time when
"It is easy to see, reflected in the virulent opposition encountered by Lister, the importance of his discovery and the social problems it produced..."

"The sewage system of London dates from 1847 and the sewage was discharged out to sea.
Half the medical wards were occupied by typhoid cases, and childbed fever was the common accompaniment
of a birth in hospital. The soul-racking fear of surgeon and patient alike was sepsis either in
the localised form of abscess or the generalised forms of pyaemia and septicaemia, which
frequently started with the massive mixed infection of wounds commonly called “hospital
gangrene.” The surgeon who operated in filthy clothes and a dirty room without the benefit
of anaesthesia saw his results destroyed by infection and developed a hardness and lack of
sensitivity as a protection against the demonstrable failures of his work."



This snippet of an unsupported article is included because it summarizes the situation well:
http://www.biblehelp.org/misunder.htm

"Joseph Lister had been studying Louis Pasteur’s research on bacteria and its possible connection with infections. From this research, Joseph Lister concluded surgical infections were the result of the introduction of bacteria via the air, hands, etc. In 1865, Joseph Lister developed an antiseptic surgical procedure and had remarkable success with his own surgeries. Our current hospital procedures are based on his antiseptic procedures.

You would think the medical community would have welcomed this helpful information. They didn’t. In fact, Joseph Lister was ridiculed, criticized, and harassed. The medical community didn’t like having its status quo questioned. The nurses regarded Lister’s procedures as eccentric, and they resented the extra work his obsessions with cleanliness were causing. The doctors were angered at the implication they were responsible for some of the deaths.

Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister were personal friends and supported each other when the medical community viciously attacked them. Sometimes they felt they were alone in their struggles to bring the truth to light. People were needlessly dying, and it seemed nobody was listening."

as does this popularized unsupported (but essentially correct) article:
http://scienceheroes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=175&Itemid=173

"It's hard to imagine the conditions that existed, given today's strict adherence to sterile surgeries. Surgeons actually felt a sense of pride in wearing blood-covered surgical garments, seeing them as a status symbol. They never even considered washing their hands between surgeries, or before examining the next patient. They felt this way because they believed the transmission of disease was, literally, out of their hands. There were two prevailing theories of disease the surgeons clung to, neither of which pointed to them having any involvement in the spread of infections. The first was "miasma," the belief that disease was carried about by noxious gases floating in the air. Their second theory was that the infections in the patient's wounds occurred spontaneously, being generated by some unknown, and unavoidable, action within the flesh itself. Both theories meant the surgeons had no responsibility in causing their patient's infections - and the death tolls continued to rise. "


Your best bet in such research is to locate copies of contemporary journals such as Lancet, where letters and arguments were commonly published.

yhs
prof marvel

[Tsalagidave]

Good stuff Prof.

I see where you are coming from now.  I thought you were talking about bathing but you were actually referring to just how filthy the surgery itself was. It is sad how they came so close to the solution but missed the mark. On one hand, they felt that direct contact with filth or the poisoned air that emanated from them contributed to infection in the same manner that the immediate environment affects the fermentation of wine and cheese. On the other hand their lack of knowledge about microbiology left them unaware of their need to sterilize operating tools. A doctor could go from one patient to the next wiping off his implements on his apron ignorant to the fact that he was the key role in the spread of infection.

Some interesting similarities I have seen to treating wounds in 1850 versus my modern medical training is that somewhat similar.
For example:

• They understood the concept of artificial respiration and had methods similar to ours now.
  Their treatment of shock such as wrapping in blankets and foot elevation follow the same concepts.
  Treating a wound involved clearing away any foreign matter but putting any ointments medicines etc. into a deep wound was a bad idea.
  Treating wounds with salts, bayrum etc. were effective cures. (Salting wounds existed as a concept since ancient times and many of us do it still. (Think Epsom salts)

We've definitely come a long way since then but to me, the contrasts and similarities are equally fascinating.

-Dave

[Drayton Calhoun]

Back when I was Buckskinning, one of my main items was a bottle of Listerine. As a mouthwash, whew! As an antiseptic, it works wonders. I always carried Clove oil, aloe, toothpase (both for the obvious reason and for burns) vinegar for sunburn, asprin, willow bark, a little sassafras root, chewing tobacco (for beestings) and about 1/2 pound of powderded clay. The clay is for multiple wasp, yellowjacket or hornet stings. When mixed with water and applied to the sting and allowed to dry, it does an outstanding job of drawing out the venom. Oh and the vinegar works well when applied to a warm, damp cloth and laid over the face for a migraine headache. BTW wring the cloth after applying the vinegar.

[Tsalagidave]

That is great stuff Drayton. I carry 3-types of medical kit. A small one for personal use, a larger one for traveling with a group and a homestead apothecary.

Here is my homestead set. I use some of the period remedies that are known to work and have used the period packaging to hide modern medicines used in lieu of ingredients that are either illegal today (opiates and cocaine) or ingredients that are extremely difficult to obtain at this time.

Although I have a jug of vinegar, bottle of olive oil, box of Plaster and a bottle of salt (that are all not shown), the rest is here.

• Bottle of bourbon whiskey "For Medical and Family Use" as stated on the bottle.
  Pain Reliever (modern aspirin or ibuprofen)
  Blood pills (Modern Zinc & Iron Pills)
  Bay rum (Period disinfectant and deoderant)
  Wine bitters for various GI complaint (Still made)
  Iodine water for various medical applications (still made)
  Hindoo Cholera Medicine (Modern Electrolytes)
  Pennyroyal- bug repellant & various external uses
  Liniment (reg) - (JR Watkins Brand)
  Liniment (strong/animal) absorbine
  Sassafrass- Various medicinal uses both internal and external
  Vermifuge- kills GI/stomach parasites: black walnut rind, & Wormseed
  Stomach discomfort- plain tums
  Unicorn Throat Losenges- Horehound candy.
  South American Fever & Ague: Nyquil
  Castille and Lavender soaps
  Bandages
  Lint

Since modern medical facilities are now within easy reach, the "surgery" implements are more for show.

Prof. Marvel posted a lot of great stuff on the subject too. Check out what he says.

-Dave