Outhouses no longer grace our landscape but we do the modern version, "the portapotty"- commonly used at major civic and regional one time events.
Yesterday as I entered a public restroom in St Augustine, Florida, my brain commented on the fact no toilet seat covers caught my right peripheral vision. I wondered if it was a cost saving decision and I would now enter stalls with seats completely covered in toilet paper(the old method) to protect those zealously guarded and precious portions of our human anatomy exposed to the elements.
My brain wandered further. How did we get from outhouses to hand sanitizers? From washing hands to antibacterial soaps and face masks?
How did we develop a religious fervor and reverence for antibiotics-to a point where we seek out and learn the symptoms which compel a Physician to write the words for that golden elixir?
Researchers have discovered a great deal about the amazing human body. How it protects against germs, how it develops antibodies once a germ has coursed our system. How it can even alter these antibodies to meet the sneaky germs, masked as old germs.
Our systems are in such sync -much like a virus scorching computer program, it created sleep. Sleeping allows the body to run full scans of our system and also provide healing power for our bodies, made vulnerable after much abuse.
Germs are not new. New strains of flu virus are not either. In fact our immune system at one time was much hardier-prior to modern medicine. Everyone knew a fever was one method of fighting germs. An old time Doctor once told me to allow a fever to run its course with my kids. Tamping down the fever with medication often slowed the process of recovery because the immune system could not function properly.
Media sensationalism is the deadliest virus I know. It creates panic, hostility, places the human nervous system on alert, stresses other physical systems and weakens the positive synchronization / harmony of one of the greatest, amazing, perfect systems known to scientists-the human body.
Too bad we humans don't trust it.