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Disease.

lonewolf

lonewolf

Slightly Obsessed
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in any sort of event, catastrophe, SHTF, whatever you want to call it, whether it is short term or longer term, the real problem is going to be disease and how to avoid it.
in a country where people seem to shower on more than a regular basis, daily and sometimes several times a day, where very few have even heard of the term "strip wash" never mind know what it means, keeping clean and healthy will be a major undertaking.
in an extended event people will succumb more easily to disease without recourse to mains water and electricity, in a really serious catastrophe-by which I mean more than just a minor shortage like repairing a burst water main-something which lasts much longer than a few days or so- we will see a resurgence of the old diseases which have not been heard about in this country for many years, I am thinking here about CHOLERA being the main one, something usually only heard about in third world countries and its a killer.
http://factfile.org/10-facts-about-cholera
 
I think not picking up diseases/viruses is a very real advantage of being a lonewolf or living in a small group with limited contact with the masses.
 
that has always been my thought too, isolation and being a recluse certainly has its uses!
 
Interesting that you mention daily showering in your first post. The current obsession with cleanliness may be likely to make us more vulnerable to disease as our natural immunity can be lowered by excessive cleanliness and use of bacterial wipes etc.
 
yes, some jobs need it like the intensive care nurse I used to date...like 30 years ago!
but for most its not necessary, its just a fixation.
I believe excessive showering washes away the bodies natural oils.
 
I agree. A long time back I went through a phase of only washing my (then very long) hair in water alone. After an initial period of it smelling like an aged billy goat it returned to normal and was in better condition than it ever has been since.
 
I have long hair and it needs washing twice a week or it gets very greasy, I have heard it said that if one didn't wash it at all it would be manky for awhile but after that it gets into a condition that is even better than washing it regularly, not something i'm inclined to try though!!
 
lonewolf said:
I have long hair and it needs washing twice a week or it gets very greasy, I have heard it said that if one didn't wash it at all it would be manky for awhile but after that it gets into a condition that is even better than washing it regularly, not something i'm inclined to try though!!
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It's what I did, it takes some weeks to get over the manky stage though.......
 
While it's possible to be too clean it's also possible to contract diseases by contact or poor hygiene. the difficulty is finding the fine line between clean enough and too clean.
As a strong well nourished 40 something male I tend to shrug off most minor ailments but children, pregnant women and the elderly need to be more careful.

As for the manky hair experiment, I knew a couple from Hebden Bridge who tried it. It took a few weeks but since then she has only rinsed her hair in warm water while he's gone bald on top and looks like a comedic representation of a mad scientist. (Nothing to do with not washing his hair though)
 
I remember when I was a kid my uncles coming home at night from the coal mines (South Wales). We had no bathroom in the house so my uncles stripped naked on the cobble stone floor in the laundry downstairs & washed.

Another thing that comes to mind is the way some children are raised these days. My mother did not believe is catching a cold from getting wet like so many other women did then & do now. She let me play in the rain & the snow, she let me sit in the dirt in the garden & at a very young age, 3-4 years I was allowed to light a camp fire & cook meat.

These days so many kids are raised in sterile conditions, no dirt, no playing in the rain, no knives, no guns, no making spears & bows & running free in the fields & woods. Now some of these children are adults & they continue this lifestyle & treat their kids in the same manner. Not my kids though & not my grandchildren either;)
Keith.
 
most kids and even some adults no longer have a clue about the countryside or animals, but is it surprising when 80% of the British population now live in an Urban environment and work in an Urban environment??
 
Working mostly providing a taste of the outdoors to inner city children I assure you quite a few of them are aware of guns and knives....

Lots of urban dwellers are there because they have no choice; they aren't deliberately ignorant or in many cases ignorant at all; nor are country all existing like a modern day Robinson cruesoe capable of raising crops from the ashes. Furthermore those hamsters in the wheels are by and large paying to subsidise the remainder. If you look historically lots of rural areas existing in a subsistilifestyle we're living hand to mouth on the verge of starvation for much of the time.

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many of them still are, that's why many commute 60 or 100 miles each day to work in a city, any vacancies in the towns and villages are mostly part time and minimum wage.
that's why people moved from the countryside to the then new cities because that is where the work was and is.
I wasn't talking about work I was talking about knowledge. or lack thereof.
and I was speaking from personal experience.
 
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But your personal experience isn't necessarily representative of the population as a whole; plenty of urban dwellers are more aware of nature, bushcraft and possess a whole host of traditional country skills and knowledge than many rural population. Just because someone lives in the countryside it doesn't make them a fully qualified farmer/homesteader/ray mears.

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the percentage of urban dwellers with traditional skills and knowledge is about the same as how many preppers there are in the general population, not very many, yes there are some but very few in number.
no, most people who live in the countryside these days are not country people, they are more likely to be urban incomers with money, country people cant afford to live here anymore, the cost of houses is too great and all the youngsters have to go and live in the cities to find work, so the countryside is populated by old people and commuters.
well it is around here.
but again that wasn't what I was referring to.
 
I doubt accurate figures are available to tell us the percentage of urban dwellers who have experience of living off the land but I would like to say that many farmers have very little knowledge of wildlife outside their everyday specialty. Many are even unable to tell the difference between wasps and honey bees which I would think of as fairly basic.
 
ystranc said:
Many are even unable to tell the difference between wasps and honey bees which I would think of as fairly basic.
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hell, I lived in a city for over 40 years and I can tell the difference.
how many urbanites can tell the difference between corn and maize I wonder? I know ones that don't know apples grow on trees and I have met ones that cant tell the difference between a goat and a calf.
does anyone remember the old BBC April Fools documentary about "spaghetti trees"? lots of people got fooled by that one.
 
ystranc said:
As for the manky hair experiment, I knew a couple from Hebden Bridge who tried it. It took a few weeks but since then she has only rinsed her hair in warm water while he's gone bald on top and looks like a comedic representation of a mad scientist. (Nothing to do with not washing his hair though)
Click to expand...

And there was me about to blame being overweight and going grey on not using shampoo during my younger years..... ;)
 
lonewolf said:
hell, I lived in a city for over 40 years and I can tell the difference.
how many urbanites can tell the difference between corn and maize I wonder? I know ones that don't know apples grow on trees and I have met ones that cant tell the difference between a goat and a calf.
does anyone remember the old BBC April Fools documentary about "spaghetti trees"? lots of people got fooled by that one.
Click to expand...

Probably find the spaghetti tree wasn't restricted to urbanites.

I can tell the difference between wheat, barley and oats from maize; how is corn different?
 
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