It was last year about this time that I wrote about hand washing in one of my columns. This simple topic for some reason got me the most unusual phone call. In fact, I was downright surprised because there was nothing controversial about that particular column, one could say it was fairly benign. An older lady had called and proceeded to go up one side of me and down the other because she never heard of hand washing as a way of preventing disease before. Who was I to tell her to wash her hands? Let us just say, I will not be eating dinner at her house.

Just to reiterate all this hand washing stuff, I do not make it up, it does not come to me in some psychic trance or homeopathic séance, it is just a fact. I am not going to mention a certain virus that we have all be hearing about way too much and I am not going to advertise for a particular brand of hand sanitizer. I will just relay the facts.

I was recently in a local business, which will remain nameless. There the lady at the counter was coughing and wiping her nose with this balled up tissue. In every respect it was disgusting, however, what made it viler was she never even batted an eye or reached for the hand sanitizer that was right beside her. She was employed to handle money and then pass it on to others. What else, I ask, was she passing on?

For those who think frequent hand washing is not important regardless of what virus is running rampant please stop reading here.

Super bugs, disease, and death, these are things that are exciting and news worthy. The fact is, something as simple as washing your hands so as not to spread sickness to others is not as exciting and conversation provoking as a deadly super bug or media induced virus running rampant through the streets or a hospital, taking the lives of helpless infants and children as they lay sleeping.

History, unfortunately, is easily forgotten, facts easily manipulated and it has a nasty way of repeating itself. It does not take much research to find out a few simple facts: In 1843 Oliver Wendell Holmes investigated the circumstances around puerperal (or childbed) fever and concluded that puerperal fever was transmitted from patient to patient by doctors and nurses on their hands and clothing. In 1847 Ignaz Semmelweis was the first clinician to reduce mortality by introducing a hand washing policy. I often read in the old homeopathic texts about sepsis or childbed fever. It was very common in fact, it was quite gross if you consider how it was spread.

It is probably not wise to take things to the opposite pole either and sterilize everything we come in contact with because in order for us to have strong robust immune systems we need to exercise them and that means sometimes letting a few germs in.

I just read today in a news report of how the sale of bleach products have sky rocketed because of our current “feardemic”. The irony I suppose would be if someone were to die from bleach poisoning.

What this all tells us about ourselves is that we may be in fact the biggest cause of our own disease. Maybe we secretly want a pandemic or the 2012 end of time prophecies to come true. For me however, I want clean hands and I want the people that touch me to have clean hands the rest of it is out of my control.

I guess it all comes down to what we were taught in kindergarten, wash your hands after blowing your nose, using the washroom or picking your nose and you have all the skills needed to survive.