This printed document is a set of rules and advice issued by the trustees of the Lord Crewe’s Charity. The rules provide advice about what to do should a body be found washed up ashore, presumed drowned.

The Lord Crewe’s Charity were based at Bamburgh Castle. There were frequent shipwrecks with drowned people being washed ashore in the area.

The rules advise: 

1. The body should be laid out on a flat board, taken to a nearby house, stripped of clothing, wrapped in blankets, placed on a couch, table or bench and examined from head to foot. If it is cold the body should be placed in front of a fire. 
2. The body should be rubbed with dry and warm flannels and sprinked with sal volatile or spirit of hawthorn and brandy. (Sal volatile was sometimes known as smelling salts – a liquid with a strong smell that was used to revive people who had fainted or collapsed).
3. Blow the smoke of tobacco up the fundament (bottom) of the body.
4. Apply heat to a cold body using stone bottles filled with warm water (hot water bottles).
5. Once the body is warm air to be blown into the lungs.
6. Once the body is no longer blue it should be moved to a bed, the nostrils tickled with a feather, and sal volatile or spirit of hawthorn and brandy held to the nose.
7. If a pulse is felt the person should be given wine or spirits diluted with water.
8. The actions set out in rules 1-7 should be undertaken for several hours until the person has recovered or has been pronounced dead. 

At the end of the document, we see that the same actions can be carried out on anyone who appears to have lost their life, not just those thought to have drowned.