“Bug Light” Invisible Monsters On Your Desk
Germs are Resilient Blighters
Research conducted in 2002 by Dr. Charles Gerba (Microbiology Dept., Arizona University) reported
that the average desk is home to 20,961 germs per square inch, alarming considering that the normal
office toilet harbours 400 times less per square inch. Why less? Toilets need to be cleaned on a regular basis for hygienic reasons... office desks are not regularly cleaned since most office equipment is off limits to cleaning staff. Our warm working environment provides an ideal breeding ground for microbes which are moistened & circulated by office air conditioning (i.e. dead skin flakes, sweat, viruses & airborne microbes brought in from outdoors or generated indoors). Whether the office looks clean or not, germs thrive on door handles, photocopiers, keyboards and water fountains. Sensitive computers, keyboards and screens result in little cleaning effort applied to them. Germs can be resilient blighters - while some viruses last for only a few seconds or days out of the body, bacteria and fungi can last a long time. Bacterial spores such as Bacillus Anthracis (causes anthrax) can last for years and are resiliant to organic solvents, boiling, ultraviolet irradiation & drying. Gerba's study determined that the main transmitter of germs was the telephone receiver, where 66% of viruses and 39% of bacteria were passed from there. Streptococcus (a germ that causes pneumonia) is one of the bacterium that is carried in the throat, and can be expelled when we sneeze or spray the office environment. The second main germ transmitter is door handles (each square inch of skin harbours an average of 1,000,000 bacteria - predominantly transported by our hands). While the vast majority of bacteria are harmless, too many can cause disease - so clean up your act! And the next time you think of taking a drink to your office desk, make sure it's a “Bug Light”. Every disease is a physician. - Irish Proverb Medicine is the best medicine. - Doctors Anonymous Diabetes is a lousy, lousy disease. - Elaine Stritch A young doctor means a new graveyard. - German Proverb An operation of the most extreme daring. - Alfred Jodl The best doctor gives the least medicines. - Benjamin Franklin Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. - Lord Byron Psychoanalysis is the disease it claims to cure. - Karl Kraus Three out of four doctors recommend another doctor. - Graffito Love is the only disease that makes you feel better. - Sam Shepard Whoever called it necking was a poor judge of anatomy. - Groucho Marx No man is a good doctor who has never been sick himself. - Chinese Proverb Ireland is a fruitful mother of genius, but a barren nurse. - Unknown A smart mother makes often a better diagnosis than a poor doctor. - August Bier I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body. - Winston Bennett Joy is more divine than sorrow, for joy is bread and sorrow is medicine. - Henry Ward Beecher Insomnia: a contagious disease often transmitted from babies to parents. - Shannon Fife The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman. - Jonathan Swift The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases. One of its diseases is called Man. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his kindness they still remain in his debt. - Seneca Physiology is the stepchild of medicine. That is why Cinderella often turns out the queen. - Martin H. Fischer I wonder why you can always read a Doctor's bill but you can never read his prescription. - Finley Peter Dunne Disease is war with the laws of our being, and all war, as a great general has said, is hell. - Lewis G. Janes People were never "living with their disease." We cured them. Or they died from it. - Neil deGrasse Tyson As it takes two to make a quarrel, so it takes two to make a disease, the microbe and its host. - Charles V. Chapin When you’re a nurse you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours. - Unknown In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science. - Martin H. Fischer Recommending gastric bypass as a national solution for our diabetes epidemic is bad medicine and bad economics. - Mark Hyman The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10 doctors agree that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot. - Jay Leno There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow. - Orison Swett Marden Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing. - Ben Hecht My doctor recently told me that jogging could add years to my life. I think he was right. I feel ten years older already. - Milton Berle It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing. - Norman Cousins Let no one suppose that the words doctor and patient can disguise from the parties the fact that they are employer and employee. - George Bernard Shaw The Pentagon still has not given a name to the Iraqi war. Somehow 'Operation Re-elect Bush' doesn't seem to be popular. - Jay Leno I went to the doctor because I'd swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. My doctor told me to have a few drinks and get some rest. - Rodney Dangerfield I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience? - Mother Theresa Paul Revere was warning the British about gun control, and George Washington apparently was crossing the Delaware to bomb an abortion clinic. - Bill Maher Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Like all parents, my husband and I just do the best we can, and hold our breath and hope we've set aside enough money for our kids' therapy. - Michelle Pfeiffer see also Medical, Office & Stress Sections
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