For all weather hazards, the best preventive measure is the wearing of adequate protective clothing. When the weather is cold enough to cause frostbite, wear a hat that covers your ears, gloves or mittens for your hands, and cold-weather footgear for your feet. These are the primary areas most subject to frostbite. Wear a hat also when there is danger of heatstroke. Unless or until you are immune to sunburn (by tanning), keep your skin covered against the sun. Fair-haired or sandy-haired individuals, even when they tan, may be susceptible to a form of skin cancer caused by exposure to sunlight. If you are in this category, you should keep the skin covered whether you "tan" or not.

Two very common weather hazards, frostbite and heatstroke (commonly called sunstroke), are fully covered in the Standard First Aid Training Course. Lesser weather hazards, such as the exposure caused by wearing insufficient clothing in cold or wet weather and the possibility of a bad sunburn in hot weather, are not mentioned.

In general, when you set forth with a field party, wear or carry with you clothing that will provide adequate protection against the weather not just as it is at the time you set forth, but as it may possibly develop before you get back.

RECOGNIZING AND AVOIDING POISONOUS REPTILES AND INSECTS

As a general rule, it is best to assume that all reptiles of the snake family found in the United States and overseas and that all insects you cant recognize as poisonous MAY BE poisonous. The poisonous snakes of the North American continent belong to the viper family. The distinguishing characteristics of a viper area flat head and a thick body. The most common North American viper is the RATTLESNAKE. All rattlesnakes are distinguishable by a row of hard rings, called rattles, on the tail. The snake makes a hissing sound with them when it is angry or alarmed. The banded, or timber, rattler of the northeastern United States is smooth, silver gray in color. The diamondback rattler of the United States Deep South is silver gray with a diamond-shaped pattern on the skin. The western diamond-back rattler has the same diamond pattern, but is a copper color. The red rattler of southern California is a deeper copper color.

Besides the rattlesnake, the most common North American poisonous snake is the WATER MOCCASIN, sometimes called the cottonmouth because of a white mouth lining that the snake exposes when preparing to strike. The skin of the water moccasin is dark brown with black bars on the upper side and black blotched with yellowish white on the under side.

The reddish brown COPPERHEAD has no rattles. This viper is found especially in uplands of the eastern Unites States.

The most common poisonous insects encountered in North America are the BLACK WIDOW SPIDER, the TARANTULA, and the SCORPION. The black widow (which may be encountered any-where in the United States) is recognizable by its small, shiny black body. The tarantula is a long-legged, hairy member of the spider family, found chiefly in and close to Texas. The scorpion, found mainly in the semitropical parts of the United States, resembles a lobster or crawfish in shape. The symptoms that develop from the bite of each of the reptiles and insects mentioned, together with the appropriate first aid, are thoroughly described in the Standard First Aid Training Course, NAVEDTRA 10081 (latest edition).