Wiping with bare hands?
November 14, 2017 10:53 PM   Subscribe

If you wipe with bare hands because toilet paper was unavailable, and then you washed your hands with soap vigorously afterwards, 1) will the hands have as little bacteria as when you had not touched the poop; 2) will the underwear which could have had poop remnants be as clean as when it had not been washed beforehand? I would say yes, but only because (1) soap does have a good cleaning effect against fecal bacteria and (2) the longer you wash your hands, the less bacteria you have, so based on (1) and (2) you probably would have Any answers especially from medical professionals, bacteriologists or chemists would be supremely welcome.

Additional links to reason (1)
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001052
posted by red_alert_3 to Science & Nature (1 answer total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Seems like you've already found your answers to this and are either just noting your findings, or looking for discussion -- taz

 
Response by poster: A modification / addition to the last sentence : "...you could say that the number of fecal bacteria will converge to (a certain level of fecal bacteria), with that level probably reaching the level that had been the case before the fecal matter were touched".
posted by red_alert_3 at 10:57 PM on November 14, 2017


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