Today, Global Handwashing Day is being celebrated in 70 countries around the world, with ritual hand-washing clinics, children singing about the disease-preventing benefits of hand-washing and, of ...

The hand washing ritual that conquered disease Religious and cultural traditions around ritual hand washing existed in many societies long before anyone understood the germ theory of disease.

Ritual hand-washing appears to have come with public health implications. During the Black Death of the 14th century, for instance, the Jews of Europe had a distinctly lower rate of death than others.

Religious tradition has always underwritten and reinforced this culture. Muslims and Jews practice regular times of prayer, ritual hand washing, bows and gestures that orient their lives to God.