Suppose that you were shipwrecked on a desert island, or that your plane had crashed in the middle of nowhere with no hope for immediate rescue, a la Lost. What sort of useful substances/chemicals would one be able to make from their surroundings or find as is in their immediate environment? I was just wondering after reading the soap making thread how chemicals were made before mass production techniques and a proper understanding of chemistry.
Would it be possible to make rudimentary anti-septics? Doesn’t honey have some anti-septic properties? Would there be any medicines that I could make from extracts of plants, animals, sea water etc. From the soap thread I see that soap can be made from lye water (which can be made from ash and rainwater) and fat. What other useful chemicals can be made along similar lines? What about explosives? I know that gunpowder is made from sulphur, potash and charcoal, but other than charcoal, how would I go about finding some sulphur (other than from a volcano) and potash?
Is there a book on backwoods chemistry of this type?
Well, it all depends why you would even want to make the chemicals … other than soap for hygene, I can really think of no particular reason why people would want to make gunpowder. Do you actually think you can reload on the island? we no longer use muzzle loading firearms. COuld you retrofit a modern firearm to use black powder? It might be of some use in blasting for making a cave, or creating loose rubble to build walls from but you would be better off learning to fish and use a slingshot.
I would suggest you get yourself 2 decks of cards, try a survival shop online. One is basic first aid, the other is plant identification. Even Robinson Crusoe didnt make gunpowder, he scavenged it from the ship. He did more through domesticating goats and planting a farm than he did actually hunting. Havent read Swiss Family Robinson in years and I really dont remember much about what they did, bit I vaguely remember they did more through farming and fishing than hunting as well.
And it isnt potash per se, it is potassium mitrate, and you can dig for it in piles of manure/bat guano/human shit. Look for white crystals. 70% charcoal, 20% potassium nitrate, 10% sulphur. Unfortunately sulphur is a function of volcanic action and there are very few nonvolcanic sulphur mines. Be very careful when combining the 3 chemicals into the first brick [with water,] and then grinding it into ‘corn’ it tends to go fzzzzz-pop fairly easily when dry.
Hm. Distill the water off sea water for salt to season and preserve food. If a plant makes the tip of your tongue tingle, dont eat it - do the military thing and do a small scratch test with a plant paste on the inside of your wrist. With snakes, red to yellow, kill a fellow - red to black poison lack usually works. Avoid spiders. Build your shack at least 10 feet above sea level, and try not to put it in dry river beds. Learn to friction start a fire.
Do you want like in the Swiss Family Robinson or like stranded on a real island. The SFR managed to land on a land mass that had every new animal, and plant found in that time period. The land had every chemical compound they wanted, and the ship wreck left them set for life. It wasn’t even an island.
I’m only using the Swiss Family Robinson theme to set a plausible situation in which this information may be useful. Of course, I’m not interested in it for that reason, I’m just curious. I suppose my question could be reworded as, using common natural resources and the ability to use fire, what chemicals can I produce and of what use are they?
It’s been a loooong time since I read it, but “Mysterious Island” by Jules Verne had a similar premise, only one of the survivors was an engineer. Verne detailed lots of interesting methods for dealing with a lack of civilization.
There is also a series of books which lists lots of backwoods lore and home remedies for the do-it-yourself types or Luddites in general. They’re called “Foxfire” (1 through 4 that I know of), and they give instruction on things like making soap, tanning leather, spinning yarn, medicinal plants, etc.
That Tom Hanks movie Cast Away was pretty realistic.
I think, like him, you’d quickly find theat chemicals are a lot less interesting than fiber. He needed fiber for fish lines and nets, and eventually to tie his raft together.
Urine is a disinfectant, and so is spit, according to Cecil. And dried salt, if you can stand the sting.
Of course there would be no fear of communicable diseases, but plenty of risk from simple cuts getting infected.
Gun powder would be cool, but you’re more apt to yearn for simple things like dry twigs to burn.
If by “usually”, you mean “for two specific species of snake found only in the American desert southwest”. For all other snake species in North America, the shape of the head is a much more useful indicator: Nonpoisonous snakes have a smooth head continuous with their body, while poisonous snakes (other than the red-to-yellow coral snakes) have a triangular head wider than their body. Not that I’m sure why our hypothetical survivalist should care whether a snake is venomous, anyway.
As for natural disinfectants, if there’s any high-carb fruits or vegetables on your island, you can fairly easily make alcohol, a very commonly-used disinfectant even where other options are available. There are a few plants with medicinal qualities, but you’d need a bit of luck to have them available, and a good deal of training to recognize them. Willow bark, for instance, contains a pain relieving chemical (aspirin, in fact), and eucalyptus can help open the airway.
As mentioned, Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island has interesting info on survival. Verne must’ve liked the theme – he returned to it over and over, writing two sequels to The Swiss Family Robinson (didfn’t know about thiose, did you?) and “The School for Crusoes”, about a training camp for such survibval, played for laughs.
Also have a look at Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” and L. Sprague de Camop’s “Lest Darkness Fall”.
I don’t think any of these authors ever axctually tried to live in those circumstances. My suspicion is that it would’ve been rough. Verne, Twain, and deCamp’s heros all knew engineering./ Robinson Crusoe himself knew a helluva lot more about day to day production of simple items than I do – I wouldn’t know where to start with “bolting” flour.
Get yourself a bunch of survival manuals, survivalist texts, and the Foxfire Books and bone up if you want to be able to live on a desert island.
Ralph Milne Farley opened his third book of Cabot’s adventures on Venus with a page asking the readeer to imagine himself being forced to build a radio from scratch for the sake of his own survival. Farley’s hero did do that in The Radio Man, The Radio Beasts, and The Radio Planet. He describes parts of the process. I knowe I sure as heck couldn’t do it. And this is 1920’s technology (if not a 1920’s style Death Ray)
While reading the OP I thought of the Foxfire project and subsequent books, as already mentioned by two previous Dopers. It’s very interesting in itself. Here’s a site: http://www.foxfire.org/prodframe.html. It seems they are now up to 12 volumes.