Neckties Seen as Flu Risk

Another reason to avoid the damn things like the plague they are probably carrying:

The list of things to avoid during flu season includes crowded buses, hospitals and handshakes. Consider adding this: your doctor’s necktie.

Neckties are rarely, if ever, cleaned. When a patient is seated on the examining table, doctors’ ties often dangle perilously close to sneeze level. In recent years, a debate has emerged in the medical community over whether they harbor dangerous germs.

Several hospitals have proposed banning them outright. Some veteran doctors suspect the antinecktie campaign has more to do with younger physicians’ desire to dress casually than it does with modern medicine. At least one tie maker is pushing a compromise solution: neckwear with an antimicrobial coating.

[Click to continue reading Nothing to Sneeze At: Doctors’ Neckties Seen as Flu Risk – WSJ.com]

Other than tradition, why the hell would anyone choose to wear neckties? They constrict your throat, and collect germs¹ – for what? To conform to Renaissance fashion trends? We don’t wear bloomers anymore, either, or powdered wigs, so why cravats?

Wikipedia’s brief history lesson on these abominations:

The necktie traces back to the time of Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) when Croatian mercenaries from the Military Frontier in French service, wearing their traditional small, knotted neckerchiefs, aroused the interest of the Parisians. Due to the slight difference between the Croatian word for Croats, Hrvati, and the French word, Croates, the garment gained the name “Cravat”. The new article of clothing started a fashion craze in Europe where both men and women wore pieces of fabric around their necks. In the late seventeenth century, the men wore lace cravats that took a large amount of time and effort to arrange. These cravats were often tied in place by cravat strings, arranged neatly and tied in a bow.

Footnotes:

1. and food, occasionally [↩]