fandomhigh | Health Education, Wednesday, Second Period

"Now that you've been introduced to germs, we're going to talk about what you can do to avoid them--besides vaccines, which hopefully you've already started your series on. Yes?" Don checked with his students.

Then he set a bar of soap down on the desk in front of him. "Behold: our best defense against infection. You see, in the nineteenth century, a Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that women in the obstetrical clinic's midwives' ward died of horrible infections at a dramatically lower rate than women in the doctor's wards. So he started trying to figure out why this might be--especially since, if you asked a nineteenth century doctor, obviously doctors were the superior option, what with their formal education and being male and all--please note sarcasm--and he noticed that one major difference was that the midwives washed their hands between patients, while the doctors...uh, didn't do that." Eugh. "Of course, the medical establishment at the time was a bunch of men who thought they could do no wrong, so things did not go well for Semmelweis, but while his handwashing protocols were in place maternal mortality at the clinic dropped from almost 20% to 2%, and after his death other scientists such as Louis Pasteur figured out that hot damn, he was right all along, which is why I wash my hands for about five minutes and then put sterile gloves on them before performing surgery.

"You, of course, don't have to go quite that hardcore, but handwashing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of germs. Think about all the stuff you touch with your hands, and all the people who touched it before you. It's especially important to wash your hands after, say, handling raw meat, using the bathroom, or sneezing on them. There is a correct way to wash your hands, and today we're going to watch an instructional video." At the end of said video, Don asked his students, "Are there any questions?"