Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-06-26 12:09
Common sense helps. Most of us appreciate that teachers need to try their students' setups. We also realize that Listerine, Sterisol and similar cold sterilants don't sterilize, and we realize we can't autoclave our mouthpieces and reeds or completely sterilize them in any other way without destroying them. Anyhow, most of us aren't as fretful about these things as Adrian Monk--although I do think the writers' choice of instruments for him was inspired! ;-)
But a large part of what makes germs contagious isn't just their presence: It's their number. That's where the so-called cold sterilants, such as Sterisol and Listerine, come in. They don't sterilize, but they do kill enough bugs to considerably reduce the *number* of germs--and knocking down the numbers is highly worthwhile. The normal immune system can (and does, every day) deal with quite a hefty pathogen load. But from a mouthpiece (or French kissing), we can get a sudden infusion of fresh bugs in large enough numbers that a healthy immune system needs some help to fend them off.
Most of those bugs are reasonably benign, but a musician who travels a lot may come home with something that's a problem not because it's SARS or bird flu or drug-resistant TB or whatever scare comes next, but simply bcause it's new. The teacher who travels to perform may have developed immunity that the kid hasn't got (and may be able to travel so much in the first place because the teacher is lucky enough to have inherited a particularly strong immune system). It might not be a major problem for the healthy young clarinet student to get sick with some new bug for a few days, but when the student passes the bug along, it could kill his sister's unborn baby or his elderly grandfather. We have a responsibility to each other to take reasonable, practical steps to avoid spreading infections.
Keeping some Listerine or Sterisol on hand just isn't a big deal. It's not time-consuming to use the stuff. Why not do something that simple to reduce the risk?
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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The Clarinet BBoard
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