Good-bye handshake?

I have always questioned the custom of shaking hands, especially after teaching Bacteriology for many years. And now, with our efforts toward physical distancing, maybe it is time for this old-fashioned custom to pass into history. I think so.

So why and where did this custom originate? In researching this question it would appear that we’re not really certain, other than it’s a form of greeting that has existed for thousands of years. One theory is that it was a way of conveying peaceful intentions to others during times of conflict. When extending your hand in greeting another it would be obvious that you weren’t holding a weapon and that approaching this individual was safe. I found it interesting that one theory was that on the battlefield you could greet a combatant with a handshake and then shake the hand and arms up and down so that any knife or gun hidden up the sleeve would be displaced. I can just picture a group of enemies gathered in a line and vigorously shaking hands and arms to see if everyone was gathering with only good intentions. At least it’s a fun image to speculate on!

Some historians believe the current use, as a form of greeting, was popularized by Quakers in the 17th century who thought that this method of greeting demonstrated that all people were equal and worthy of this level of personal contact. True or not, within a hundred years the act of shaking hands actually had rules, with etiquette manuals providing instructions on how to properly shake another’s hand. For example, to use a moderately firm grip and to not shake the hand too violently.
During my years of teaching science, the subject of bacteriology and instruction about germs was a topic my students enjoyed. Our science classroom was equipped with petri dishes, test tubes, an incubator, a refrigerator, plus everything a first-class lab would use. One of the experiments I always included involved the study of the amount of contamination that could be found on hands. These studies involved having students touch an auger medium inside a petri dish with fingers that had not been washed and then to have some of them touch a separate auger preparation after cleaning their hands. We would then incubate the auger in a warm environment for a designated period of time. It was always fascinating to see their reactions when they saw how many cultures of organisms the soiled hand contaminated dishes would grow, and how little could be found on those touched by clean hands. It was a powerful method to visually prove the value of clean hands.
I can remember one memorable year when some of my senior students proposed to outlaw handshaking in the school following a series of these experiments. They even started a contest that was aimed at finding ways to display the act of saying hello, glad to meet you or congratulations with something other than touching hands. The students voted on all suggestions. The one that won was suggested by a female Harvard-bound student who successfully demonstrated how a smiling face and a very slight bending of the head, while smiling, was sufficient.

The smiling face with a slight lowering of the head works without germs. But whether you chose this, a shoulder bump, fist pump or some other substitute, I think it’s time to re-consider the act of shaking hands as a form of greeting. And our COVID-19 “new normal” seems to dictate this should be so, even long after this current pandemic is a distant memory.