We wash our hands with soap if we have access to it. It is ONLY possible with sand if there is no water accessible. And using clean sand is still more hygienic than leaving your hands dirty.
EDIT: If you didn't get it, the only place where its usually impossible to find water is in the desert. Where the sand is mostly even bacteria free.
Desert sand is full of bacteria specialized to live in desert sand. Sand will not make your hands sanitized though. That’s ludicrous. It may wipe away large particulates of shit as an abrasive and therefore to a person without germ theory it certainly would seem to have cleaned the hand.
Threshold contagion for disease is infinitesimal. Beyond the threshold it doesn’t matter how many more bacteria there are, it will not affect your ability to fight the disease. You will either have an immune system with the experience to fight the contagion or you will not and you will get an infection and the infection will become a disease. Visible residue on your hand is far, far beyond that threshold. An unsanitized hand with no visible residue is also far, far beyond that threshold. There is no medical difference between the two beyond a mildly different incubation period. This is not the reason why a holy book gave this advice. The holy book gave this advice because it provides guidance to people who were wiping their asses with their hands on proper etiquette during a sacred rite of prayer.
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u/ScarletFFBE Apr 02 '20
We wash our hands with soap if we have access to it. It is ONLY possible with sand if there is no water accessible. And using clean sand is still more hygienic than leaving your hands dirty.
EDIT: If you didn't get it, the only place where its usually impossible to find water is in the desert. Where the sand is mostly even bacteria free.