Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

There's nowt wrong with soap and hot water is there, it's what all our ancestors used and just what we use now too!

Frugalsod

lobbyludd wrote: »

I'm not advocating chucking out either actually - I believe the survival of the species is routed very firmly in us all behaving differently - and therefore no matter what, someone will survive. It is the difference and range that is important: uniformity kills.

Agreed. uniformity means the next disease can rip through a population even more easily. So even though something like ebola can kill a very high percentage those that are left become immune and gradually they make up a bigger proportion of the population.

[Deleted User]

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

There's nowt wrong with soap and hot water is there

Carbolic soap is even better.

GreyQueen

lobbyludd, I wasn't talking about returning to the dark ages in terms of ignorance. Heaven forfend we lose sight of how many illnesses are spread and start thinking it's the evil eye, moonbeams, menstruating women or germy furriners with their germy ways. I wasn't thinking about visitors (foriegn or otherwise) I was thinking a small, isolated group.

Even in the 21st century, in a developed country with mass education, you still get people so pig-ignorant that they will go straight from the toilet without washing their hands to doing food prep for dozens of people a day. And food businesses who allow vermin all over their kitchens, fail to refridgerate and serve visibly rotten food - you should see the pix I see and stories I hear in my job, it's stomach-turning. And non-neurotic people, who have no idea of what's going on behind the scenes, are getting sicknesses as a result. Even hospitalisation level sicknesses.:(

What would a small, enclosed community do if one or some of its members couldn't be bothered to do a soap & water handwash after visiting the outhouse? Or who defecated themselves/ allowed their animals to defecate beside places where others drew their drinking water? Or who took a turn at communal cooking and made many people ill? Would people say nothing because not everyone got sick? Or say, we haven't anti-biotics, or IV drips to rehydrate people, so we have to be careful, and that includes the dirty beggar?

For the record, I don't have anti bac products in use, just plain soap. I average one intestinal upset per decade, if that, even though I'm slightly immuno compromised due to chronic health problems and their attendant drug regime. But my healthy colleagues drop like ninepins with ordinary old upper respitory tract infections; a call centre full of coughing, croaking and sneezing, feverish colleagues isn't a happy place and an office bug goes through the department like a dose of salts and circulates for up to a fortnight.

I was also raised 'country style' with the view that you've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die and I definately pick up and eat stuff which has hit the kitchen floor myself (wouldn't feed it to company, tho).

[Deleted User]

If you want a good soap BOB you cant beat Wrights Coal Tar or Pears, I used to like the smell of Lifebuoy too. Wrights Coal Tar is favourite though, coo what a smell!!!

GreyQueen

Oh, and I've done bushcrafting and do know how to ***t in the woods.:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

Oh, and I've done bushcrafting and do know how to ***t in the woods.:rotfl:

But do you know what to wipe with?

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

But do you know what to wipe with?

An ex military man told me that vulgar joke about wiping with leaves and using the stem to get the leftovers from under your fingernails. I was up a volcano in a rainforest with a Maori feller at the time, but I've heard it elsewhere, too, from British soldiers.

grandma247

when we first moved here 20 years ago there was an incident with cryptosporidium in the water supply and I was ill for three weeks. I felt like I was dying.

I always try and sneeze into my elbow so long as I have long sleeves on after I watched this.

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

If you want a good soap BOB you cant beat Wrights Coal Tar or Pears, I used to like the smell of Lifebuoy too. Wrights Coal Tar is favourite though, coo what a smell!!!

I have 4 bars of each as spares. That will last me ages as I use value soap and liquid soap as well.

I also use those giant 1L cheap bubble bath for 40p as my main liquid soap. It is so much cheaper than the same volume of branded liquid soap. It is basically a detergent and cheap as chips so no excuse to not wash your hands and save money as the same time.