[quote=“Annej2003, post:42, topic:29126, full:true”]
There’s a sliding scale of personal hygiene practices v contamination > illness. My own view is that Anne J is rather overdoing it.
I recall the front cover of New Scientist with a photo of two children playing in what the Americans call ‘the dirt’ and the headline [to the effect of] “Are we eliminating our children’s ability to resist?”
My mother was a nurse trained in the old school, as described by Peter Goble. Enamel bedpans scrubbed with caustic soda solution - no gloves. She served in the QA’s in WW2 on the Subcontinent and the Far East in circumstances where ideal medical hygiene practice was likely to be very difficult to achieve.
My upbringing did not feature the level of personal hygiene practiced by Anne J, especially during the 9 years of 8 months in 12 spent at boarding school. The gist of the piece in the New Scientist was that a certain level of exposure is necessary to keep one’s immune system in fighting trim.
I have perhaps given this notion a test to within a gnat’s of destruction. All I can say is that in some really hygienically dodgy situations, I’ve survived with no ill effects. In my years of travel to places where sanitation is absent or, if present, part of the problem rather than a solution, I’ve never had Delhi Belly
Probably the most testing was refilling my water bottle from a stump of rubber hose set sticking up in the middle of a muddy road in a Himalayan village. All forms of transport used this road, from buses and trucks to barefoot pedestrians and animals.
In Peshawar, Pakistan, the council urged everyone to use the dumps provided for the remains and offal of animals slaughtered during Eid, the festival following Ramaddan. Like hell they did. The smell of rotting animal in the Old Town was discernable in University Town, 5 or so miles up the GT Road. At 2 miles from the bazaar, I couldn’t face it and went home.
After Ramaddan for 7 months I took lunch with 40 of my Afghan colleagues. Six days a week we shared two enormous piles of mutton pilau, each man taking a couple of handfuls onto his plate and eating it with the right hand, assisted by nan bread. Drink was water from jugs into glasses which had not seen washing up as we know it, Jim.
I did have a short bout of a flu-type something. One of Vero’s colleagues at M.S.F. diagnosed “infection from inhalation of faecal dust”. There are whole countries, like Pakistan, where ‘inhalation of faecal dust’ is part of everyday life.
I am suspected, in some quarters, of ‘double dipping’ stuff like hummus or taramousalata. I have failed to convince my accusers that I always turn the slice of pitta or bread stick round to dip the ‘clean’ end…
