In first aid, it is important to remember your goal, which is to provide the first help that a victim gets, not to provide comprehensive medical care. You want to stop bleeding, and clean up the victims.
The only serious injuries I have ever seen in scouting are, cuts (includes scratches and scrapes), hypothermia, heat stroke and exhaustion, burns, and broken bones. I therefore focus my first aid discussion on these items. I have also seen stings, poison ivy, and crud in the eye but these things usually sort themselves out fairly well. W haven't had an allergic reaction to any of them yet though. If someone has an allergic reaction to something ask them about it. If they say it is serious or if the have never had this reaction before the only thing to do is to get them to an emergency room asap.
Disinfection - You always want to disinfect everything. Its one of the most useful things you can do in first aid. If you plan to bandage the area later on you don't want to use a petroleum jelly based antibacterial such as neosporin because the bandages won't stick. The other options are iodine, alcohol, betadine, and mercurochrome. Alcohol and iodine both sting a lot. Mercurochrome will give you mercury poisoning if you use it on a large area. Therefore Betadine wins. You can get it in most drug stores.
Direct Pressure - Direct pressure is the best way to stop bleeding. Hold the cleanest thing available over the wound and press until the victim complains (in many cases pressure will make it feel better). Sometimes pressure on the nearest pressure point can help as well, but using the pressure point without direct pressure is rarely any help.
Splinting - When something may be broken you want to keep it still.
This makes it feel better and also keeps it from getting worse. The best way to
tell if you've broken something is to compare it to an unbroken one (you have
more than one of almost everything) for shape. Once you have decided that it
looks broken enough to splint, you need to find materials. You need stiffeners
that are long enough to keep the break from flexing. You also need stuff to tie
the limb to the stiffener without cutting off circulation.
Before you splint you should check circulation (blood flow) and feeling. You
check feeling by pinching the fingers or toes of the affected limb and see if
the victim feels it. You can check circulation with the fingernail test. You
squeeze the fingernail (or toenail) of an unaffected limb and an affected one.
This will make them turn from pink to white. When you release them try to see if
one turns pink again before the other. If the broken side takes a l,ot longer to
turn pink, you may have circulation problems (caused by the broken bone
squeezing off a blood vessel) You should do this test before splinting and again
after splinting. If it came out ok before, but not ok after splinting, you will
need to redo the splint in another position. Generally make the splint in the
most comfortable position for the victim and tie it as tight as you can without
cutting off circulation. (This is almost always tighter than you think)
First Aid Kits - My Philosophy on first aid kits it the same as my philosophy on tripods in photography. Bigger is clearly better, but if it is big you will often decide not to bring it along, so go with a small one which you will always bring. A first aid kit at home when you are in the field is about as useful as third head. Bring bandaging and disinfecting materials and moleskin. Also bring anything that would have helped on the last couple of injuries you saw. Experience will teach you here more than anywhere.
First Aid Kit Contents - Personal Kit for Outdoor Activities
Disinfectant - Betadine (liquid)
Gauze Bandages (Big ones can be made small, but small ones cannot be made big)
Tear-able Tape
Band-Aids
Pain killer
Moleskin
Ace Bandage (for splints and sprains)
For Farther afield adventure add:
Wire Splint
Roller Bandages
Things You should Have anyway which are useful for First Aid
Scout Knife (ex: Tweezers)
Flashlight
Pen and Paper
Neckerchief and clothing
Scout book (for instructions you have forgotten)
Water, and lots of it
First Aid for common problems
Cuts, Scratches, and Scrapes (includes fairly serious cuts)
Signs: Bleeding
Hypothermia
Signs: Stops shivering, claims to be warm when clearly is not, refuses to put on warm clothes against all logic, confusion, sitting quietly curled up in cold conditions.
Broken Limb
Signs: One limb is different in shape from its mate
Burns
Signs: First Degree - Redness
Second Degree - Blisters,
Third Degree - Popped Blisters or Charring
Crud in the eye
Stings and bites