Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel Bomb here with another classic episode from our archives,
Speaker 1: especially since the COVID pandemic. We live in a very
Speaker 1: germ conscious world, but it turns out that we don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about sharing books. The only peril in
Speaker 1: them is to their characters. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogel
Speaker 1: Bomb here. You remember books, words printed on paper, bound
Speaker 1: between two covers. When Gutenberg introduced the printing press in
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty, books became objects of extraordinary wonder that would
Speaker 1: change the world. Throughout the centuries, These fascinating, tactile objects
Speaker 1: educated and amused, instructed and advised, and curled up with
Speaker 1: us on rainy nights, sparking our imaginations. In eighteenth century America,
Speaker 1: lending libraries became egalitarian sanctuaries of knowledge, where farmers and
Speaker 1: financiers alike could access for free all the mysteries of
Speaker 1: the world. But in our current virtual, ephemeral, device driven culture,
Speaker 1: books have become marginalized clutter. Sometimes casually thrown away. Books,
Speaker 1: just like the rest of us, can end up in
Speaker 1: some truly grungy places. In some cases, Bona fide treasures
Speaker 1: have literally been tossed into garbage bins and kicked to
Speaker 1: the curb a couple of cases in Point in Vancouver,
Speaker 1: British Columbia. In twenty seventeen, a homeless man salvaged four
Speaker 1: rough condition eighteen seventies Moroccan leather books from an alleyway
Speaker 1: trash heap. Turns out, the four volumes, titled The Far East,
Speaker 1: consists of twenty four issues of a rare English language
Speaker 1: news magazine published in Shanghai, China, between eighteen seventy and
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight. Back in two thousand and nine, Suthebee's
Speaker 1: in London auctioned one hundred and eighteen issues of the
Speaker 1: same periodical, with one hundred and twelve original album in prints,
Speaker 1: the largest collection to surface on the market in thirty years,
Speaker 1: for over forty two thousand dollars. Don Stewart, a veteran
Speaker 1: bookseller and the owner of renowned mclloyd's Books in downtown Vancouver,
Speaker 1: who who purchased the volumes for an undisclosed amount, said
Speaker 1: it's the best thing ever to come out of the
Speaker 1: garbage that I've ever encountered. And then in Ankara, Turkey,
Speaker 1: over a period of time, sanitation workers in the Turkish
Speaker 1: capital collected thousands of discarded books while making their garbage pickups.
Speaker 1: Instead of abandoning them to landfills, these thoughtful, curious stewards
Speaker 1: of knowledge rescued the books and compiled a library that
Speaker 1: now houses six thousand volumes in every imaginable genre. Originally,
Speaker 1: the library was set up only for the sanitation workers
Speaker 1: and their families, but as words spread, people began to
Speaker 1: donate cast off books, and the library opened to the
Speaker 1: public in September of twenty seventeen. Now a vital part
Speaker 1: of the community, the library is located in an old
Speaker 1: brick building at the headquarters of the city's sanitation department.
Speaker 1: The collection of salvaged volumes has grown so large that
Speaker 1: the library now loans books to schools, various educational programs,
Speaker 1: and prisons. These books, like any used books, may carry
Speaker 1: the stains and abrasions of their former experiences, including generations
Speaker 1: of people handling them. But as much as books may
Speaker 1: impact us, how much of an impact do we leave
Speaker 1: on books. Let's skip over to Los Angeles in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Sick at home with the flu Chyanne dabert A sixteen
Speaker 1: year old high school sophomore wondered if she was getting
Speaker 1: contagious germs all over the library books she was reading,
Speaker 1: and then began to wonder if library books in general
Speaker 1: might be potential carriers of infectious disease. So she created
Speaker 1: an award winning international Science Fair project to find out.
Speaker 1: With the help of local librarians, she chose popular books
Speaker 1: that were checked out often and rubbed methodically taken swabs
Speaker 1: from each book onto four Petrie dishes per book. Two
Speaker 1: of the dishes contained agar, a substance that bacteria thrive upon,
Speaker 1: and two of the dishes contained methylene blue, a chemical
Speaker 1: that thwarts the growth of certain bacteria while enabling others. Next,
Speaker 1: she put the plates in an oven at body temperature
Speaker 1: to find out how many microbial colonies were present and
Speaker 1: guess what, fearless library cardholders. Not much bacteria was present
Speaker 1: on the books she tested, and none of the swabs
Speaker 1: exhibited E. Coli. With that in mind, say hello to formites.
Speaker 1: A formite is any non living object or substance capable
Speaker 1: of carrying infectious organisms, such as viruses or bacteria, and
Speaker 1: transferring them from one individual to another. We spoke via
Speaker 1: email with Jesset Jacob, MD, an Associate professor of medicine
Speaker 1: and hospital epidemiologist at Emory University Hospital Midtown. He said
Speaker 1: that books and e readers can be considered formites, but
Speaker 1: quote the infection risk is very low. Asked if it's
Speaker 1: possible to get sick from touching a library book, for example,
Speaker 1: someone with the flu licked their finger to turn the pages,
Speaker 1: or sneezed or coughed on the book, Jacob said it's possible,
Speaker 1: but unlikely. Influenza can survive on paper and cloth for
Speaker 1: less than twelve hours. It's usually the respiratory secretions that
Speaker 1: carry the highest burden virus, and it would not be
Speaker 1: expected on spit, so licking a finger and turning a
Speaker 1: page is less likely contagious than picking your nose and
Speaker 1: then turning the page. Important safety tip, Jacob continued. Most
Speaker 1: respiratory viruses are transmitted by indirect contact, such as when
Speaker 1: a person touches an object think doorknobs and handles that
Speaker 1: has been contaminated and then inadvertently touches a mucous membrane
Speaker 1: such as the lining of the eyes, nose, and mouth.
Speaker 1: While bacteria can potentially be spread by books or tablets
Speaker 1: in most people, it will not cause infection. Asked what
Speaker 1: kind of bacteria and viruses have the strongest survivability on paper,
Speaker 1: Jacob said gram positive bacteria such as strep and staff
Speaker 1: are better at persisting on surfaces in general, followed by viruses.
Speaker 1: Jacob suggests that because so many people are allergic to
Speaker 1: dust and mold, those are probably bigger problems than bacteria
Speaker 1: or viruses on books. He left us with this sage
Speaker 1: advice good for shared books and any other objects. Clean
Speaker 1: your hands and avoid touching your face or mucous membranes
Speaker 1: with potentially contaminated fingers to avoid catching a virus. So,
Speaker 1: if you perchance regret tossing that once cherished, dog eared,
Speaker 1: pizza stained copy of whatever it was that first ignited
Speaker 1: your passions or awakened your sensibilities, but why not revisit
Speaker 1: another well loved copy by checking it out at your
Speaker 1: local library. According to Jacob, the odds of it making
Speaker 1: you sick are quote very low, but with a pine,
Speaker 1: the odds of it making you happy are very very high.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article used books may
Speaker 1: be jermy, but they won't make you sick. On how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com, written by Kerry Tatrow. Brainstuff is production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and
Speaker 1: this episode was produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.