Don't Panic, Wash Hands

In every life we have some trouble

When you worry you make it double

Don't worry, be happy

-Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy

More dangerous than any nuclear bomb, more debilitating than any sabotage of the nation's electric grid: biological warfare.

To the uninitiated, everything is obscure: dumbed down public school systems, the satanic acquisition of our values system, the need to "just be happy," if it feels good, do it. Our broken culture is ripe for a public health disaster. This army medical officer, was assigned to staff the army hospital at Fort MacClellan, Alabama. One of my first orders, after a few days there, to inspect the hospital. Now I was a brash, ambitious first lieutenant and I thought when the commander told me to inspect the hospital, that was what he meant.

So, with tissues in my pockets, I inspected the hospital from stem to stern. Really, if a hospital is not clean, what can you expect from other places? As a poet said, "If gold rusts, what do you expect iron to do?" In the wards, I found brooms in the closets. I said to the ranking Sergeant, "what are these brooms doing here?" He said, "We sweep the floors." I said, "You do not sweep floors in a hospital, you mop them. You do not do anything in a hospital which disturbs the microbiology harboring there."

In the mess hall, I found there was no soap in the washrooms. I said to the mess officer, "It is essential that cooks keep their hands clean, especially after using the toilet." Checking the coffee urns was like checking the urinals in many bathrooms. Everything was a matter of neglect. I will not go into detail into everything, but my report went all the way to the Pentagon AND the Army almost closed down that hospital. I can assure you I did not win any popularity contests there. The mess officer never spoke to me again the entire time I was there.

I persuaded one of the housekeepers, in a local hospital, responsible for cleaning the rooms to stick a piece of tissue on the handle of commodes in various rooms and areas in the hospital, because, she had told me that the handles of the commodes, unlike the seats and tops, were never cleaned. Just think of it, every person, regardless of disease using toilet paper and then putting their hands on that handle. One after another. Then and there, I decided and talked about such on the radio, "If one wants to go into the most dangerous place on Earth, go to an American hospital. If you do not die while you are there, perhaps you can escape and come home."

It was learned long ago that the owner of a restaurant should stay close to his cash register. Have you ever watched the owner of a cash register making change, fiat bills holding on themselves every disease known to man (money is the dirtiest thing in the world), and then immediately reaching over and touching someones plate or glass or some other form of service. The dirtiest item in a restaurant, the one item that has caused more disease than all microbes found in food served, the salt and pepper shakers. Most are never washed, handled by everyone. In a time of fast food, when every minute and penny determines the bottom line, customers are expected to care for themselves. When you find a "sticky" table, you can well imagine how many microbes you are eating.

With all our knowledge of bacteriology, epidemiology, and other public health statistics, we seem to go backwards instead of forwards. More people sick now from more strange diseases than ever before. When the military decided they could no longer utilize a mostly blind medical officer, I was retired. Still young, ambitious, having spent most of my life preparing for my profession, one doctor asked me to come in and work with him, just doing the things I was able to do. I spent a few hours in his office observing. This "old schooled" practitioner, who attempted to treat everything, would have his hands in one patient's mouth and go directly to another patient's eyes. I never saw him wash his hands. The most dangerous body parts God created, those things at the end of your arms, your hands. They are so magnificent when coordinated with your eyesight, can accomplish intricate surgery, create wonderful music on an instrument, when used for caressing can give comfort to the sick and dying, BUT, indiscriminately handling doorknobs, stair rails, and anything else one needs to touch, can distribute more microbes than any warfare biological laboratory. There will be an Ebola vaccine because we know how vaccines have "wiped out" pneumonia, influenza and many other contagious diseases. There are more deaths from flu now than ever and Ebola, like flu, will mutate and strew itself all around the nation.

No, there is no need to panic, panic will not do anyone any good. Yes, it is good to wash your hands very often but there is nothing to replace common sense, and there is so little common sense. Get over this idea of political correctness-discrimination-racism, when an epidemic of any type breaks out anywhere, survival depends on control. I was raised on an eastern North Carolina tobacco farm, and so was my father and his father. We did not have any of the conveniences of the world. Mostly self-sufficient. My father said that in all his years on that farm, other than a school bus or a mailman, he had never seen a government agency vehicle of any type on that road where all three generations had lived, such as law enforcement, public health, help of any type in a time of disaster such as a tornado. Young people have matured thinking that calling "911" will solve all of their problems. Hard times bring out the best in the human psyche. The Christian church under persecution in Communist China, has grown faster than the Christian Church with all the Democracy of Taiwan.