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Project ZomboidKnox County medical record

Project Zomboid Health & Medical Guide

Search 68 Build 42 medical items and eight medical recipes, then learn how injuries, bandages, infection, sickness, bites, burns, fractures, medicine, and First Aid work.

Medical DatabaseVideo5-Step PathMedical KitEmergency RulesInjuriesTreatmentSicknessMedicineFirst Aid
Build 42.20.4 data mine

Health & Medical Database

Search medical items, bandages, medicine, herbs, poultices, tools, kits, and protective equipment. Inspect source tooltips, encoded treatment fields, native art, loot availability, and medical recipe links.

68
medical items
8
medical recipes
53
source icons
Showing 36 of 68 matching items
MedicineFirstAidDrainable

Alcohol Wipes

Base.AlcoholWipes

Source tooltip

Used to sterilize wounds and aid recovery from infection.

Bandage
Not set
Disinfect
4
Infection
Not set
Weight
0.3

Treatment properties

Medical flag
Yes
Can bandage
No
Bandage power
Not set
Alcohol power
4
Infection reduction
Not set
Pain reduction
Not set
Flu reduction
Not set

Use and item properties

Fatigue change
Not set
Endurance change
Not set
Hunger change
Not set
Thirst change
Not set
Amount used per action
20%
Capacity
Not set
Weight reduction
Not set
Maximum condition
Not set

Database connections

Loot Finder

62 direct and 49 procedural connections.

Crafting

No indexed medical recipe.

Item Database

Inspect the complete item definition and connected systems.

Tooltips
38 translated
Bandages
11 definitions
Loot
56 connected
Crafting
17 recipe inputs
Source note: these are item-definition fields and translated game tooltips. A missing field is shown as Not set. Treatment results can also depend on wound type, body part, First Aid skill, item condition, character state, sandbox rules, and runtime code. Wound infection and the Knox zombie infection are separate systems.
Featured First Aid Video

Ultimate First Aid Guide: Injuries and How to Treat Them

A practical first aid video covering common Project Zomboid injuries, how they happen, how to treat them, and which health problems beginners should recognize quickly.

Watch this first if you want a quick overview of wound types, then use the written sections below as a practical medical checklist while you play.

Watch on YouTube

The Simple 5-Step Health Path

Project Zomboid health is about reacting in the right order. Stop the danger, stop the bleeding, identify the wound, treat it properly, then recover before taking more risks.

Step 1

Get Safe First

Do not open your health panel while zombies are still close. Create distance, enter a safe room, close doors, and stop the immediate danger first.

Step 2

Stop Bleeding

Bleeding is the first emergency. Use ripped sheets, bandages, or adhesive bandages to stop health loss before worrying about perfect treatment.

Step 3

Identify the Wound

Scratches, lacerations, deep wounds, bites, burns, and fractures all need different levels of care. Check the body part and wound type.

Step 4

Clean and Treat

Disinfect when possible, use sterilized bandages, remove glass or bullets from deep wounds, stitch wounds that need it, and replace dirty bandages.

Step 5

Rest and Recover

Eat well, sleep, avoid more fights, and let your character recover. Some wounds are survivable, but only if you stop making the situation worse.

Beginner Medical Kit

You do not need a full hospital in your backpack, but you should carry enough supplies to stop bleeding, clean wounds, treat pain, and handle common emergencies before returning home.

Ripped Sheets or Bandages

Your most important emergency item. Carry several so you can stop bleeding quickly.

Disinfectant or Alcohol Wipes

Useful for cleaning wounds and lowering the risk or impact of normal wound infection.

Tweezers

Used to remove glass shards or other foreign objects from deep wounds with less pain than using your hands.

Needle and Thread

Needed to stitch deep wounds if you do not have a suture needle or dedicated medical tools.

Painkillers

Pain can make fighting, moving, and recovery harder. Painkillers help stabilize your character after injuries.

Beta Blockers

Mostly a combat support item, but useful because panic can make dangerous situations harder to control.

Antibiotics

Useful for weakening normal wound infection, especially when you have multiple wounds that are hard to keep clean.

Food and Water

Staying fed, hydrated, and rested matters when recovering from low health or serious injuries.

Emergency Health Rules

Some health problems give you time to think. Others do not. If you are bleeding heavily, bitten, badly burned, fractured, or mysteriously losing health in your base, treat it as an emergency.

Beginner rule: a small wound can become deadly if you keep fighting, keep bleeding, or keep standing near whatever caused the problem.

Bandage Neck Wounds Immediately

Neck wounds can bleed extremely fast. If your neck is scratched, lacerated, or cut, bandage it before doing anything else.

A Bite Usually Means Death

By default, zombie bites cause Knox infection. Bandages stop bleeding, but they do not cure the zombie virus.

Remove Glass Before It Gets Worse

Broken windows and glass shards can cause deep wounds. Use tweezers if possible, then stitch and bandage the wound.

Never Run Generators Indoors

Indoor generators can kill you with carbon monoxide poisoning. Keep generators outside, not inside your base.

Injury Types and How Dangerous They Are

Different injuries require different treatment. The faster you recognize what happened, the faster you can stop the bleeding, reduce pain, and avoid making the wound worse.

Low to moderate

Scratch

A basic wound from zombies, glass, trees, fences, or other hazards. Bandage it, disinfect when possible, and keep the bandage clean.

Moderate

Laceration

A deeper cut that bleeds more than a scratch and takes longer to heal. Treat it quickly and replace dirty bandages.

High

Deep Wound

Usually caused by glass, bullets, falls, or heavy damage. Remove foreign objects, stitch the wound, then bandage it.

Usually fatal

Bite

A zombie bite can be bandaged like a wound, but default settings make the Knox infection fatal.

High

Burn

Burns take a long time to heal and need clean bandages. Avoid fire, unsafe cooking, and careless generator or campfire setups.

High

Fracture

Usually caused by falls, car crashes, or blunt trauma. Use a splint, rest, and avoid fighting or traveling until mobility improves.

How to Treat Common Health Problems

Think of treatment as triage. Stop immediate health loss first, then clean, stitch, splint, rest, or relocate depending on what caused the problem.

Scratches and Lacerations

Apply a bandage or ripped sheet to stop bleeding. Disinfect when possible, use sterilized bandages if available, and replace dirty bandages. Zombie scratches and lacerations can transmit the Knox infection depending on your sandbox settings.

Deep Wounds

Deep wounds often need more than a bandage. Remove glass, bullets, or foreign objects with tweezers or medical tools, stitch the wound with a suture needle or needle and thread, then bandage it.

Bites

Bandage the bite to stop bleeding, but understand that a zombie bite is usually fatal with default infection settings. Use the remaining time to secure your base, organize supplies, or prepare your next survivor.

Burns

Burns heal slowly. Keep them clean, replace dirty bandages, rest, and avoid stacking more injuries while your character is recovering.

Fractures

Apply a splint to fractured limbs and stay home if possible. Fractures can heavily reduce movement and combat ability, especially if the injury affects your legs.

Low Health

You can be in danger even after visible wounds are treated. Eat, sleep, rest, and avoid combat until your health recovers.

Normal Infection vs Knox Infection

New players often panic when they see an infected wound. A normal wound infection is not the same thing as Knox infection. Normal infection can cause pain and slow recovery, while Knox infection is the zombie virus.

What to remember

  • • Normal wound infection can happen from dirty wounds or dirty bandages.
  • • Disinfectant, sterilized bandages, antibiotics, and some poultices can help normal infection.
  • • Knox infection is tied to zombie transmission settings.
  • • A zombie bite is usually fatal on default settings.
  • • Antibiotics do not cure the zombie virus.
  • • Sandbox settings can change how zombie infection works.

Sickness, Colds, and Hidden Dangers

Not every health problem comes from zombies. Weather, corpses, bad food, tainted water, poison, heavy loads, fall damage, and unsafe generators can all hurt or kill your survivor.

Cold or Flu

Being wet and cold for too long can make you sick. Coughing and sneezing can attract zombies, so tissues or toilet paper can help muffle the noise.

Corpse Sickness

Spending too much time around large corpse piles can make your character sick. Move away, clean up bodies when safe, and avoid sleeping near corpses.

Food and Water Sickness

Rotten food, poisonous mushrooms, poisonous berries, bleach, and tainted water can make you sick or kill you. Be careful with unknown food and unsafe water.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

A generator running indoors can quietly drain your health and kill you. Place generators outside your base.

Medicine and Medical Supplies

Medicine does not replace good survival habits, but it can help you recover from pain, panic, tiredness, infection, and certain sickness situations. Keep your most important supplies in a bag or medical storage area.

Painkillers

Reduce pain so your character can function better while recovering or escaping danger.

Beta Blockers

Reduce panic, which is especially useful before dangerous fights or after a scary zombie encounter.

Antibiotics

Help weaken normal wound infection. They do not cure the Knox zombie virus.

Sleeping Tablets

Increase tiredness and can help you sleep when recovering, but use them carefully.

Vitamins

Reduce tiredness and can help when your character needs to stay awake longer.

Herbal Poultices

Some herbs can be turned into poultices after learning the right recipe. They can help with certain injuries or sickness.

Recovery: Food, Sleep, and Rest

Once the wound is treated, recovery becomes the next job. Eat, sleep, stay warm, replace dirty bandages, and avoid unnecessary fights until your character is stable again.

Eat enough food to keep your character recovering.
Sleep when injured or critically low on health.
Avoid combat until wounds are stable.
Replace dirty bandages before they cause more problems.
Do not travel far while limping or fractured.
Stay warm and dry when recovering from a cold.

First Aid Skill Explained

First Aid is useful, but beginners should understand what it actually does. It is not a magic healing skill, and it is usually less important than avoiding wounds in the first place.

What First Aid Helps

Higher First Aid can make medical actions faster, make bandages and poultices last longer, and improve splint effectiveness for fractures.

What First Aid Does Not Solve

Do not assume First Aid turns you into an immortal doctor. For most common wounds, supplies, fast treatment, food, rest, and avoiding more injuries matter more.

Should Beginners Grind It?

Usually no. Leveling First Aid can help, but it is not as important as learning how to avoid bites, stop bleeding, and carry the right supplies.

Optional leveling note

Some players intentionally use broken glass and tweezers to grind First Aid, but it is risky and unnecessary for most beginners. For normal survival, carry supplies and avoid injuries instead of farming wounds.

Herbal Medicine and Poultices

Some herbs found through foraging can be used for natural medicine or poultices once you know the recipe. Herbal treatments are more advanced than basic bandages, but they can become useful for long-term survivors who spend time foraging.

Common Health Mistakes

Opening the health panel while zombies are still nearby.
Ignoring bleeding because the wound looks small.
Not carrying ripped sheets or bandages.
Climbing through broken windows without removing glass.
Leaving dirty bandages on for too long.
Confusing normal wound infection with Knox infection.
Assuming antibiotics can cure a zombie bite.
Running generators indoors.
Sleeping near corpse piles.
Fighting while injured, exhausted, or in pain.
Driving recklessly while already wounded.
Carrying too much weight while injured or trying to escape.

Source database FAQ

Common health and medical questions

How many medical items are in Project Zomboid Build 42.20.4?

The supplied Build 42.20.4 snapshot contains 68 player-facing medical items across bandages, medicine, herbs, poultices, tools, supplies, kits, containers, and protective clothing.

How do you heal injuries in Project Zomboid?

Get safe, identify the wound, stop bleeding with a bandage or rag, disinfect when possible, replace dirty bandages, and rest while staying fed. Deep wounds may need foreign objects removed and then stitching.

Is a wound infection the same as zombie infection in Project Zomboid?

No. A normal wound infection and the Knox zombie infection are separate systems. Medical supplies can help with ordinary wound infection, but they do not cure the zombie virus.

What happens if you get bitten in Project Zomboid?

By default, a zombie bite causes Knox infection. Bandaging the bite can stop bleeding, but it does not cure the zombie virus unless sandbox settings or mods change infection behavior.

What medical supplies should beginners carry?

Carry several clean bandages or ripped sheets, disinfectant or alcohol wipes, painkillers, beta blockers, tweezers, a suture needle or needle and thread, and enough food and water for recovery.

Is First Aid worth leveling in Project Zomboid?

First Aid is useful but is not usually a beginner priority. It improves treatment actions and wound information, while avoiding bites and carrying the right supplies remain more important.

Why does the database show Not set for some properties?

Not set means the item definition does not explicitly provide that field. Runtime code, defaults, wound type, First Aid skill, character state, and sandbox rules can still affect the result.

Does the database include medical crafting recipes?

Yes. It indexes eight source recipes for cleaning or disinfecting bandages and rags, dousing cotton, making herbal poultices, and making a splint.

Are native medical item images included?

Yes. All 68 records resolve to packaged item artwork, using 53 distinct verified source icon files from the supplied game snapshot.

Related Project Zomboid Guides

Health problems are easier to survive when your combat, base, and travel habits are safer too.

Beginner Guide

Learn what to do first, how to survive your first week, and how to avoid common early mistakes.

Combat Guide

Learn melee basics, shoving, stomping, spacing, stealth, guns, hordes, and when to retreat.

Base Building Guide

Choose a safehouse, cover windows, barricade, prepare for water shutoff, and use generators safely.

Vehicles Guide

Find cars, get gas, hotwire, check vehicle condition, avoid crashes, and travel safely.

Skills Guide

Use TV, VHS tapes, books, carpentry, electrical, mechanics, farming, fishing, and trapping.

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