For many years, now, I've been making a herbal healing salve. I'll list the ingredients below. My experience is that it can cure some serious stuff (infected cat scratches and dog bites and even herpes) but there are some bacterial infections it does not cure. It's probably best as a first line of preventing infection, too, rather than trying to cure them. The microbiology of that is unknown to me, but it is also my first line of defense for cuts and dings. I have given away lots of it, then had some people insist of buying it from me when the gift ran out because it worked so well. I have one friend that used it as an all over lotion.
As far as my first aid kit, one of the things I keep a good supply of is the commercial mastitis treatments called "Today". It comes in tubes like giant syringes. This came from an experience about 15 years ago when I had an infection in a surgical incision that would not heal, just continued to ooze -- for months. After the medicos kept putting me on systemic antibiotics for ages and to no avail, finally one happened to mention the word MRSA and the lightbulb went off. MRSA is staph aureus. "Today" brand mastitis medication is for staph aureus mastitis (tho it's not really all that treatable but that's another story--From my lifetime of practicing goat medicine. ) Topical application cured the oozing and healed the incision within days.
My healing salve starts with a base of melted coconut oil in a big soup pot. I then put in a handful or two of the following herbs and steep for a day on very low heat. calendula, rosemary, borage, comfrey, thyme, yarrow, arnica, lavender and plantain (most of which I grow here). Strain the herbs out of the oil, melt in some bees wax (so it doesn't melt on hot days) and add some tea tree oil and some vitamin E as a preservative. I suspect that the tea tree oil is the most active ingredient.
