Wash hands, read Dickens
By David Zizzo
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Published: October 22, 2009
As any schoolchild knows, Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco to Europe, searched for gold and helped suppress the rebellion of the Desmonds.
OK, any schoolchild in a Dickens novel. But did you know that Raleigh, despite not being a cockroach or a child in a Dickens novel, could be responsible for spreading disease even today?
This heroic figure from a time of exploration, discovery and tight pants is often credited with popularizing the handshake. Today we know that shaking hands, although not as bad as walking on them across a locker room floor, is worse than not shaking hands. Hands, researchers have found, are the mass transit system of germs and viruses.
It’s rush hour in the microscopic world. Germs line up at their little subway stations, also known as door knobs, muffled sneezes, diaper changes and porcelain fixtures. Soon their ride — a human hand — pulls up, and millions of the tiny critters talking on tiny
Bluetooth devices crowd aboard the Andromedas Train before it pulls away. Eventually, the hand arrives at the station, also known as the human mouth, nose or eyes, and the germs go to work at
Common Coaled Inc. and Coffupalung Industries.
Experts opposed to such free germ enterprise say we can interrupt this microbial daily commute simply by wearing hazmat suits and bombarding ourselves with electron beams. Or if that’s too inconvenient, we can just wash our hands. Some of us don’t like to, though. The
American Society for Microbiology found that 17 percent of women and 26 percent of men who used restrooms at airports didn’t wash.
That’s roughly one out of five people who don’t wash. That led the
Florida Department of Health to create an ad campaign in which the "Fifth Guy” walks around an office holding a urinal.
So, please don’t walk on your hands in airport restrooms or carry porcelain fixtures. If you do, stay home and read a Dickens novel.
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