Clean Hands

Found in many SAF toilets (usually right beside the mirror) is a poster that I presume is supposed to instruct army boys in the fine art of hand washing. The posters, of the kind made popular by the SARS outbreak, detail 7 scrubbing techniques that should be employed once hands have been lathered with soap. I highly doubt normal people practice the full routine on a regular basis. However since in the SAF your hands do have a certain propensity for dirtiness, I have actually found it rather useful.

When I was very very young, I did not grasp the need for scrubbing during washing. I always thought water was some mystical liquid whose very presence made things clean on its own. Soap was of course merely to make things smell nice. It was after a few more persistent stains that I discovered "ooooo... there's a reason for scrubbing", and even then the concept of germs and sterilization alluded me until awhile later. Of course now thankfully I know a lot better.

In my defence, "I need to wash hands to kill bad germs" isnt a very obvious conclusion for a toddler. Afterall for the longest time even doctors and surgeons had no concept of washing hands before handling patients.

In 19th century Vienna for example, it was common practise for doctors and medical students of the Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien (Vienna General Hospital) to spend their mornings dissecting cadavers. After which many of them would proceed to the Obstetrical Clinic to deliver children, often without bothering to rinse their hands. Apparently, the strong smell of cadavers on their hands was even a source of pride since it showed that one was a doctor. Needless to say, this led to an "inexplicably" high percentage of mothers dying from childbed fever.

It was the Hungarian physician Ignac Semmelweis who first displayed statistical data and some rough scientific evidence for the presence of so called invisible "cadaver particles" that were responsible for the deaths of many women. Yet few accepted his theories, and many rejected his solution of washing one's hands in chlorinated lime before handling patients. The poor guy was eventually driven insane by the indignation and died in a mental institution. It was only a few decades later with Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister (yay! he's from king's!) that Germ Theory was properly established and antiseptic techniques credited.

We have certainly come a long way in our understanding of things. But even without germs, clean nice smelling hands are still nice to have I suppose...

³Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?
 ⁴He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

-Psalm 24:3-4

Random verse? Absolutely...