Dealing with contagion in crowds in 1923, with soap

When I saw this ad on the Duke Ad Access site (they study historic advertising there), I noticed that the message was about contagious diseases in crowded areas in 1923, and the ad was for soap.

There were a lot of contagious diseases back then, most of which have been conquered by modern medicine, and amazing vaccines, but soap is still important. Sorry, I don't want to sound like a commercial, but it really is true. Wash your hands.

I'm writing this in October of 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I'm hoping that people are still washing their hands, with soap. My mom taught me to do that back when I was a little kid, and while I'm not obsessive about it, I do it. That there would need to be signs in just about every public restroom I use reminding people to wash their hands just boggles my mind, but I guess for a lot of people germs and contagion are just as invisible, and meaningless, to them as when I was a little kid who didn't want to wash my hands before dinner. My mom had to insist!

I've always preferred being out in the fresh air to being in places like stadiums, airports, bars, places like that. Of course, sunshine and pure air is not a guaranteed prophylactic (I've never seen the word used like that!), so I've always done basic stuff like washing my hands, eating my veggies, getting my shots.

I've lived now for over six decades and I'd like to believe that following basic sanitation, and following medical advice, has helped get me to that point. Of course there are a lot of people my age who are doing just fine even though they never did any of those things. I will often see them post about it on social media, displaying what is known as "survivor bias" (we never wore seat belts, and we did just fine!" is a classic example of survivor bias).

Avoiding diseases is like everything else in life, the idea is to improve your odds of remaining healthy. There's never a 100% guarantee, it's just that your odds get better if you look both ways before crossing a busy street. I've always enjoyed being healthy, and I just hate getting sick, so I'll wash my hands.


Images from the Duke University Library Digital Collections.
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