About the Importance of Hand Washing

Our hands carry out hundreds of tasks in a given day. From washing faces, handling food and taking out garbage to greeting strangers, shaking hands and holding doors for others, hands work hard. Unfortunately, hands also carry a plethora of germs, diseases and infections. In this article, we'll discuss the importance of hand washing, risks associated with unclean hands, and some benefits of keeping hands clean.

History of

• Over 100 years ago, Viennese doctor Ignaz Semmelweis first discovered the importance of hand washing and pioneered the early phases of disease control. In the Viennese hospital where Dr. Semmelweis practiced, maternity patients were contracting fatal illnesses. The death rate for hospitalized mothers was 5 times higher than for those women who gave birth in their homes. Interns who treated some of these women attended anatomy class and worked with cadavers before beginning their maternity rounds. There were no guidelines for hygiene during that period. Hence, the students went straight from working on cadavers to touching human patients, transferring pathogens with dirty hands.

  With the death rate continuing to climb, Dr. Semmelweis conducted an experiment that garnered little more than the ridicule from his colleagues. He made it mandatory for students to wash their hands after working with the cadavers before they could treat the women in the maternity ward. After a short period of time, the maternity death rates dropped dramatically.

  In 1843, in the United States, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes also recognized the necessity of clean hands in treating childbed fever which is caused by the Streptococcus Pyogenes bacteria. His views met with less than stellar reception. When Dr. Josephine Baker created a hygiene program for child care workers in 1910, disgruntled doctors petitioned the mayor to cease this program that was destroying their practices by making children healthy.

  Despite the known risks associated with improper hand washing, the spread of illness and disease continues throughout the world, and contributes to many epidemic illnesses in poorer countries.

The Facts

• Clean hands are the #1 way to prevent the spread of disease because the most common mode of germ transportation is hands. One square centimeter of skin holds roughly 1,500 bacteria. And, the average work desk holds 21,000 germs in 1 square inch.

  Well over 2,000,000 patients in the United States will acquire some type of infection totally unrelated to an illness during a hospital visits each year in the U.S. alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some caused by improper hand washing procedure.

Risk Factors

• Germs lurk everywhere. In fact, it's impossible to avoid all germs, but clean hands will prevent the spread of germs that cause illness and disease. Germs love to convene on toys, doorknobs, cellphones, handbags/purses, shopping carts, remote controls and light switches.

  Any location that has lots of people traffic also has lots of germ traffic. Think of your hands as the Public Transit System for the germ population. Here are some common forms of germ distribution:

  - Food. Anytime you handle food without washing hands or wearing protective gloves, germs will jump from surface to surface, sometimes resulting in food-borne illnesses
  - Body to hand to surface. When you rub your eyes, or smooth back your hair or touch any part of you, and then touch something or someone else, you've successfully transported germs.
  - Contact with someone who is sick. Even if there aren't visible symptoms, if you're touching someone who is sick, such as a child with a fever or diarrhea, those germs will travel with you until you wash your hands.
  - Contact with animals. If you have pets, you're usually bound to have lots of contact with them during the course of the day. All those puppy kisses and cat baths, however, will leave you coated with a smattering of animal germs that can also cause illnesses in humans.

Function

• Not only is it important to wash hands on a regular basis, it is vital to practice proper technique. A quick rinse under a cold tap does nothing but get the germs wet. In order to kill these invisible passengers, you'll need to follow these steps for proper hand washing:

  -Wet your hands with very warm water (as warm as you can stand it)
  -Apply bar or liquid soap and lather well
  -rub and scrub hands vigorously for at least 20 seconds
  -make sure to cleanse all surfaces, including wrists, backs of hands, in between fingers and under fingernails
  -thoroughly rinse to remove all soap
  -dry with clean dry towel or paper towel

Benefits

• The only true benefit of hand washing is that it prevents the spread of infection and disease. Having clean hands, however, lets you feel more protected as you go through your day. Clean hands are essential to maintaining good health.