The Humble Hanky

MMMM, yes, the humble hanky, a small cotton cloth, often found folded neatly into a square which fits comfortably in one’s pocket or up ones sleeve. I am sitting here, on a tram, (with my laptop out looking like a wanker), struggling through those first glorious days of spring sunshine where the over production of pollen has made everybody’s eyes itch, skin break out in hives and noses leak profusely. It is as I sit on this tram that I look over to find a delightful older gentleman with his slacks pulled up to his nipples and held neatly in place with a pair of strapping red suspenders.  As I admire this gentleman’s salute to the camel toe I notice he starts fumbling around in his front shirt pocket and does something that is quite stereotypical of his generation, but none the less makes me fret. The old bloke pulls out a hanky.  If you are not already aware, I am a nurse, a nurse who takes infection prevention quite seriously and a nurse who is DISGUSTED by the unrelenting use of the hanky by the general public. I have gathered some statistics on the time frame of bacterial and viral contamination as well as the rates in which bugs in your snot multiply. Sorry to be crass but it’s for your own good.

 The common cold is caused by a host of little bugs; the common predators are the adenovirus, moraxella catarrhalis and haemophilus influenza. Big names huh?  These bugs are transmitted by spread, usually via respiratory droplets, aka your snot. Another fun characteristic of these microbiological master minds is that they are unusually stable; meaning the little buggers can live a long time in said snot, say on your hanky?  Most of them are also aerobic organisms which means they can survive and grow in an oxygenated environment, like a hanky in the top pocket of an older gentleman’s shirt on the number 19 tram? Just another quick note before I go, the average bacteria takes approximately 20 minutes to divide and multiply with some bacteria taking as little as 3 minutes to replicate. Scary huh? Tissues for the win.