What was the hygiene in the USSR: A reusable syringe, one glass of soda for everyone and no mass infections

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

At a time when we nervously rub our hands for the "eleventh" time with an antiseptic, and the latter are scattered everywhere, you begin to think about how you did without all these measures before. In the Soviet Union, where there was one glass for everyone in the machine, and the syringe was reusable and also one for everyone, there was no coronavirus pandemic, but there were always enough other dangerous viruses and bacteria, so why did no one get sick and there were no massive infections?

Soda machines were not just a way to quench their thirst, but a symbol of the Soviet era, as were steel syringes that were boiled and reused boldly. Perhaps, if you look from the point of view of ecology and the desire to reduce the use of plastic and reusable use, then such an approach is correct and reasonable. However, what is the risk to human health in this case?

Faceted glass. General

Vending machines with soda and various syrups to it could be found in crowded places, most often they were train stations, cinemas and other places, after which you so want to quickly wash your hands. In hot weather, a line of people wishing to quench their thirst lined up to them. The popularity of such machines does not come close to the level of demand for modern machines with coffee and other drinks. And yes, unlike modern counterparts, there was one glass in the soda machine, maximum two. Therefore, figuratively speaking, with a long queue, I still kept the warmth of the hands of the one who quenched his thirst in front of you. And that's still good, if only hands.

Such machines began to appear in the Soviet Union in 1932; in the post-war years, their installation became widespread. Soda without syrup for 1 kopeck, with syrup three times more expensive. You could choose the taste of the syrup yourself, the most popular were: barberry, pear, cream soda, bell. And so a Soviet citizen, honestly standing in line, got to the coveted glass, dipped a coin into the receiver, and then in front of the queue of compatriots tormented by the heat, avidly drank a glass of (highly carbonated) water. A very specific entertainment, a real quest. And then it turns out that the glass is not at all sterile.

No, the glass, of course, was washed, or rather, it was rinsed with cool water. After the next citizen, having quenched his thirst, put the glass, turning it over, into a special docked nest, the system doused him with a stream of water both from the inside and from the outside. But this was not disinfection at all, but a way to wash away the taste of the previous drink. Often lipstick imprints remained on the glass as a silent evidence that the glass was already in great demand and was practically not washed. From time to time, the automatic machines were given a cleaning day, then they washed the glasses with hot water and a cleaning agent. But such "events" were not carried out hourly or even daily.

At the same time, in the entire history of the Union, you will not find a single mention of someone getting infected from a glass from a vending machine. But here the principle “the problem is absent until it is made public” was more likely to operate here. Disease statistics in the Soviet Union were traditionally not disclosed, for example, over the years there was not a single outbreak of influenza in the country, so Soviet health care was considered one of the best in the world. Only health care, like many other spheres, came to the aid of statistics, which were too flexible. Of course, glasses could be a source of infection and act as a direct route of transmission of viruses and bacteria. The greatest risk is to catch ARVI, flu, herpes, intestinal infection. Particularly squeamish citizens carried their glass in a bag and drank only from it, others tried to wipe the rim of the glass, allegedly erasing the traces of another person's presence, others simply ignored such machines.

It's funny, but the citizens who were most bothered were not their compatriots, who also used these machines, but foreigners. At a time when guests came to the country to participate in the Olympics, stories began to spread that foreigners use machines to wash their faces. Vending machines disappeared from the streets not because they were unhygienic, but because their maintenance became too expensive, moreover, coin acceptors often broke down, and it was extremely expensive to repair them taking into account constant inflation. Thus, it cannot be said that the machines did not serve as a source of infection. They served, but to say unequivocally that the sick person got infected because he drank from a dirty glass, no one could, with the same success a colleague who had previously drank from a common glass, of course, could sneeze on him.

The reusable syringe and the hazards associated with it

What's a glass, if in the USSR, up to the 90s, reusable syringes were used. Made of metal and glass, they had to be boiled and reused. Considering that glass becomes fragile at high temperatures, they often broke and failed, and even using such medical instruments was inconvenient and fraught with burns. But this is not a bad thing, not all viruses and bacteria die at high temperatures, moreover, the sterilization process itself is extremely complicated and requires great responsibility from medical personnel. The latter, for obvious reasons, could well be the weakest link in the chain of ensuring patient safety.

The secret of the fact that there was no massive outbreak of HIV and hepatitis is that these diseases at that time, and even with closed borders, were not widespread. Although precedents did happen. So, in 1988, in Elista (Kalmyk ASSR), HIV was detected in 70 children and a couple of adults. The investigation showed that they all received treatment at a local hospital. The infection was also detected in neighboring regions; by the end of the next year, there were already 270 infected. Despite the fact that the official version was precisely reusable syringes that were not sterilized properly, the case did not develop, and after 30 years it was closed. The case was not made public, in Volgograd, where a similar situation arose, the infected were given apartments, and their names were classified. Elista, on the other hand, became the place from which they refused to admit people to other hospitals, the townspeople themselves were afraid to seek medical help, go to public baths and hairdressers.

Public baths - down with shame in the fight for hygiene

Another Soviet phenomenon was the public bath, despite the fact that there are collective steam rooms in other countries, only in the USSR they were used to wash. Common basins, ladles, thank you for at least selling individual brooms. Although it was rumored that the attendants collected them, dried them, and successfully re-sold them.

Nowadays, no one would even think of entering pools, water parks and showers outside the house without rubber shoes. At that time, coming to the bathhouse barefoot was the norm. The iron basins, in which everyone was washed, of course, were also cleaned, but without fanaticism. It was enough that most often they were subdivided based on body parts. The confidence that you have not rinsed your feet in the basin in which you wash your head is good. It often happened that one washcloth was used for the whole family, and women sat on the bath benches just like that, without laying a sheet or towel. In this case, the absence of mass infections is again explained rather by the low activity of the diseases and viruses themselves.

Cleanliness is the key to health

Contemporaries, hearing in old films the phrase "He was given an apartment with a bathroom", may be confused, not only are apartments "given out", but also the presence of a bath is presented as something special. But it was so, by the 60s, the bathroom, and even more so, the hot water in it was a luxury item and few people were lucky to live in such lordly conditions. They went to the bathhouse once a week and this was considered the norm; in dormitories there were so-called bath days in showers.

In communal apartments, in which the vast majority of the country lived then, the presence of bathrooms was not at all supposed, especially if it was built on the principle of a barrack. If we add here the crowding and common cuisine, then it is better not even to imagine what and how the fellow citizens smelled. After the massive construction of Khrushchev buildings began to disappear from apartments and toilets, it was quite normal that residents of apartment buildings had to go out to the toilet common for the whole house. Under such conditions, washing (by hand, of course) was something extremely difficult and time consuming. But the hygiene of citizens was of little concern to the state, although no, they did not forget to hang custom-made posters about “my hands before eating”, but no one was in a hurry to supply hot water to the apartments. Is it before her? When space has not been explored here, Afghanistan has not been conquered, and America continually steps on its heels.

In Soviet films, where brave, physically developed guys who work hard physical work, immediately after it, end up in snow-white T-shirts, and the girls always have clean and styled hair, no one asked questions. Citizens understood what the "tractor driver Vasya" actually smells like after a 12-hour working day and that "milkmaid Anya" looks and smells like him.

All you need to know about the Soviet Union and its priorities is that toilet paper appeared in the country 7 years after the first manned space flight. Not to mention the feminine hygiene products, which were in no hurry to release, and this topic was considered shameful and awkward. Say, a real Komsomol member and a Soviet woman should think about something more sublime, and not about their own physiology. It was not customary in the USSR to properly care for teeth, a low level of dentistry, a lack of painkillers, low quality cleaning products and a high carbohydrate content in food - this is the reason why by the age of 30-40, most of the teeth fell out. of the above, we can only conclude that the approach to hygiene in the Union was very specific. Rightly believing that there is no better way to protect citizens than to increase their own immunity, much has been done in the country in this direction. On the other hand, ensuring the safety of its own population from diseases transmitted from person to person was very low, with information "security" the situation was much more effective. Despite the fact that now we are much more demanding on hygiene, this does not mean that we are surrounded by sterile and disposable items. So, "Hidden drawings" in expensive rooms of luxury hotels told a lot about Covid-19.