"We should leave the monkeys in the trees"

[Libby]

"Coughs and sneezes spread diseases, trap them in your handkerchief." I can remember that being chanted at me in a sing-song fashion when I was young. Maybe that was just a Brit thing?

I could understand youngsters not having a clue (though they obviously do), but older people don't have any excuse.

[seesthru]

Americans don't make a habit of carrying handkerchiefs. Sure you see older men use them, but that's it. Women have kleenex packets and kids pretty much use shirt sleeves, and shirttails, and hands to wipe noses. and aim coughs and sneezes in our hands. I see that is a very bad and kinda nasty idea! LOL

Actually, kids now are taught to sneeze into their elbow. That way they don't spread germs on their hands and then to doorknobs, and other things. I'm not sure why people don't use handkerchiefs. We wait until the noses are leaking, then run for tissue paper.

[Walkabout]

handling and washing snot rags is nasty , has to be done in hot water[ more and more laundry is washed in warm or cold water] and can spread germs everywhere. This is why hospitals have gone to use once and incinerate [ and they still have problems].

[seesthru]

I only have cold wash. I think I'd go back to the pot on the fire and boil them suckers, followed by a bleach wash!

[Walkabout]

reminds of ' Gone With the Wind' where Mammy is putting clothes in the ' bawling ' pot to kill lice.

[Libby]

Going off at a bit of tangent: On another forum, I and several others had a tough time explaining that some immunisations don't work. That conversation was about rubella immunisation. Rubella is generally a mild disease, but it can be devastating to a foetus. Rubella immunisation is part of the triad of immunisations given to children (MMR - measles, mumps, and rubella) and has been for very many years. But expectant mothers are always tested for rubella immunity. And that's because some people, even if they had the disease as a child, or had been given routine immunisation, still show up as having no immunity.

There are so many ways to prevent or combat infections which might be mild/annoying to some people, but can be very serious or deadly to others. I think there is the tendency to think that now we've got immunisations, we don't need to worry so much. Except that not only are viruses very good at mutating and catching us out, too many people in the (non-epidemic) West have got rather nonchalant about the basics.

I'm one of those for whom rubella immunisation doesn't work, despite many jabs. My son could have been a "rubella baby" were it not for a very vigilant cousin who kept her rubella-infected children away from a family get-together, where I and another cousin were in our first trimesters. That was back in the 1970s, yet there are still people who think: just have the jab and then you'll be ok forever. But I guess I can't blame them entirely for not knowing - the government here had enough of a problem with the MMR vaccine scare, so I don't suppose they'd want it known that at least one of those triads doesn't always work. Ultimately, both of my children were protected by everyone else.

[Walkabout]

my brother had rubella twice which is very rare. I was made to hang out with him to get them, and never did. However I got the 10 day [ Rebeola] measles which can cause deafness, blindness , and other brain / nerve damage. I was very sick but no permanent damage, but my brother never got this more serious [for the patient] form. By the time Europeans came to the Americas bringing measles, mumps, small pox and other diseases more than half the native americans died because they had little immunity to these.

My brothers kids were never vaccinated against small pox as we were. Immunity is unpredictable even with today's medical advances.

[seesthru]

I was very lucky. My mother was exposed to Rubella when I was in utero. They were all afraid I"d be born with Down's Syndrome. I was not. I contracted Rubella when I was a child, and the other measles too. Never had mumps or Chicken Pox though.