By Erin K. Costello
Kate’s follow up post (image down below) on her Facebook profile begins with, “As I read more about Mary Mallon ("Typhoid Mary") and the historical time in which she lived, I learned several interesting things. (She lived 1869 - 1938.) The idea that hand-washing could play any role in disease spread began in the mid-1800s. Doctors, who were educated and thought of themselves as "clean" compared to the working class, didn't like being blamed for peoples' deaths and rejected the notion. It wasn't until the early 1900s that hand-washing was more accepted. It was still mostly practiced in medical settings, and by upper-class people who could afford soap and such." Mary did live during 1869-1938. The idea of hand washing as a tool to prevent disease spread did originate in the mid 1800s. Doctors at that time did, foolishly, take offense to the claim their hands were not clean and they in fact harmed their patients as a result. Well, most doctors did anyway. A few doctors are the ones responsible for the concept of washing hands to prevent disease. Semmelweis was one, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, even Florence Nightingale adopted the practice. More than this though, the British surgeon, Joseph Lister, was a pioneer in antiseptic surgery which consisted of washing one’s hands, medical supplies, and environment with antiseptics. As a result, by the end of the 1890s and early 1900s, hand washing was something not only done by doctors but something everybody was told to do. Robert Koch demonstrated that tuberculosis was not hereditary but something you became infected with after grandma coughed on you. Koch’s discovery started the anti-tuberculosis movement which prioritized teaching school kids about to germs and to practice good hand hygiene. It was during this time that vaccines and antibiotics caused death rates to drop. Proper food storage and packaging also grew out of this time period. Kate’s post continues with, “Advertisers tried to get people to see soap as important, calling moms "health doctors," and getting them to purchase more soap. There was a brief period of time where people washed often, but they still didn't have a real understanding of hygiene. By the mid-1900s, frequent washing had fallen out of favor, and a lot of people embraced being "natural" (along with free love). Disease, especially sexually-transmitted, skyrocketed. It wasn't until the early 1980s that the government and the medical organizations came up with the first official policy on hand-washing to stop the spread of diseases. Even today, overall compliance with "best practices" is low, in both community and many medical settings." Throughout the early 1900s and into the middle of the 1900s, it was common practice for most people to wash their hands often. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, throughout the free love and hippy movement, washing one’s hands was considered unnatural and didn’t embrace one’s own microbes. Even though this time was riddled with increasing sexually transmitted diseases, it wasn’t until the 1980s, during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when people once again realized the importance of proper hand hygiene. It was also during this time that the CDC/HHS released proper hygienic guidelines for washing one’s hands. Not having done this until the 1980s sounds incredibly late, but considering the CDC didn’t even form until 1946, it’s actually only a bit late of the CDC. Kate then concludes her post with, “It's not rational to suggest that if Mary had just washed her hands, everything would have been fine. That wasn't something people in her time and her position (an Irish immigrant) would have done. We must always look at things in their proper historical context, instead of looking at our current cultural beliefs and scientific knowledge and judging people on our standards." What is not rational is someone who denies that which is in front of them. Whether it be Mary refusing to do something as simple as washing her hands to prevent illness because she denied the science behind this, or it be Kate who refuses to vaccinate, use modern medicine, wear a mask during a pandemic because she denies the science behind these actions, and apparently refuses to believe historical documentation of relevant things past, it is safe to say that rationality is not a factor. I’m not sure how being an Irish immigrant affected Mary’s denial and refusal to wash her hands. And, I’m sorry, but, are you kidding me with this ? - “We must always look at things in their proper historical context, instead of looking at our current cultural beliefs and scientific knowledge and judging people on our standards.” That has to be a Freudian slip. Like, if they gave out prizes for the biggest Freudian slips, this one would at least be a contender for top ten, if not the winner. I have one question though. If so little was known by the public regarding proper hand hygiene, and hardly anyone bought into the practice of hand washing, then how did so many diseases, both vaccine preventable and otherwise, decrease in morbidity and mortality during this same time period? I mean, isn’t the decrease usually blamed by anti-vaxxers on proper hygiene and sewage? How can that be if something so simple and easy as hand washing had yet to be common practice? This is a rhetorical question.
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