Hand washing

I got the blood tests done yesterday afternoon. Cost $460 for them all. As my friend Kent put it, they stuck me in two ways. The results should be back in three or four days. They will forward the results to the doctor in OKC. Haven’t got my CT scan scheduled yet. Will work on that today.

Otherwise, not much to tell you. I’ve been reading, watching funny stuff on TV, and playing World of Warcraft. Mostly reading, though. Always my first and best escape. I’ve just started Last Argument of Kings, the third book in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy. I like the first two books (The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged) but the reviews of the third book weren’t that good. I hope he can pull off a satisfying conclusion.

I’ve also been researching the American medical establishment. Or rather its sins. I’ve been horrified to read about how doctors, doctors’ organizations, and drug companies have hounded people who have defied them. Many of these people were, of course, quacks, sometimes dangerous quacks, but a significant percentage of them were simply ahead of their time and paid the cost for it.

Here’s a good example from Wikipedia:

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (July 1, 1818 - August 13, 1865) was the Hungarian physician who demonstrated that puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") was contagious and that its incidence could be drastically reduced by enforcing appropriate hand-washing behavior by medical care-givers. He made this discovery in 1847 while working in the Maternity Department of the Vienna Lying-in Hospital.

Semmelweis realized that the number of cases of puerperal fever was much larger at one of his wards than at the other. After testing a few hypotheses, he found that the number of cases was drastically reduced if the doctors washed their hands carefully before dealing with a pregnant woman. Risk was especially high if they had been in contact with corpses before they treated the women. The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed at the time. Thus, Semelweiss concluded that some unknown "cadaveric material" caused childbed fever.

He lectured publicly about his results in 1850, however, the reception by the medical community was cold, if not hostile. His observations went against the current scientific opinion of the time, which blamed diseases on an imbalance of the basical "humours" in the body. It was also argued that even if his findings were correct, washing one's hands each time before treating a pregnant woman, as Semmelweis advised, would be too much work. Nor were doctors eager to admit that they had caused so many deaths. Semmelweis spent 14 years developing his ideas and lobbying for their acceptance, culminating in a book he wrote in 1861. The book received poor reviews, and he responded with polemic. In 1865, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an insane asylum where he soon died from blood poisoning.

Only after Dr. Semmelweis's death was the germ theory of disease developed, and he is now recognized as a pioneer of antiseptic policy and prevention of nosocomial disease.

You would think hand washing would be a no-brainer, but even today, many doctors doing their rounds at hospitals do NOT wash their hands between seeing patients, even those with transmittable diseases. A good friend of mine who is an RN has personally seen many doctors forget to wash their hands between patients, despite many programs instituted to remind them to do so. (Note: She has also seen nurses and other health care workers not wash hands.) You have to wonder why they don't.

Not that we regular folks are doing much better at this simple way to prevent illness. According to the American Society of Microbiology:

Although illnesses as deadly as SARS and as troublesome as the common cold or gastric distress can be spread hand-to-hand, the survey sponsored by the American Society of Microbiology (ASM), found that many people passing through major U.S. airports don’t wash their hands after using public facilities. More than 30 percent of people using restrooms in New York airports, 19 percent of those in Miami’s airport, and 27 percent of air travelers in Chicago aren’t stopping to wash their hands. The survey, conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide in August 2003, observed 7,541 people in public washrooms in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami and Toronto.

U.S. airport observations contrast sharply with an August 2003 Wirthlin telephone survey of 1,000 Americans, in which 95 percent said that they wash their hands in public restrooms. The same phone survey – which found only 58 percent of people say they wash their hands after sneezing or coughing and only 77 percent say they wash their hands after changing a diaper – highlights the seriousness of the problem.

Here’s a link to a brochure on hand washing. Download it. Read it. It may save your life. Seriously.

And on that note, I'll close and get ready for work. Have a wonderful day. Remember me in your prayers; I'm remembering you!

Click here to order Murder by the Acre in softcover from Amazon.com.
Click here to order Murder by the Acre in softcover from Lulu.com.
Click here to order Murder by the Acre in hardcover, exclusively from Lulu.com.
Click here to order Murder by the Acre merchandise.