Is it healthy to sterilize our environment a lot?

About one thousand years ago, there was a dynasty in China, called Song Dynasty. It was the most prosperous dynasty in Chinese history. China was the most prosperous country in the world at that time.

Like any other prosperous society, Song Dynasty faced constant threats of looting and other disturbances from its poorer neighbors. Being a prosperous dynasty, it can muster enough resources to defeat looters. But looters won’t go away. For people living close to wealthy societies, looting is their best strategy. In the end, Song Dynasty paid regular tributes to its northern neighbor, Liao, in exchange for peace. The peace had lasted for about one hundred years, with only occasional skirmishes.

Later, the northern neighbor’s further northern neighbor, Jing, rose in power. Song Dynasty saw an opportunity to revenge for the earlier humiliation. Song Dynasty made an alliance with the deep north state to destroy the state in the middle. They succeeded in eliminating the middle state, Liao. But the buffer zone in the middle is gone. The very next year, the capital city of Song Dynasty was captured by the rising state, Jing.

We might laugh at the stupidity of Song Dynasty. Liao has been the neighbor of Song for more than one hundred years. Each is quite adapted to the existence of the other. Why take an extraordinary effort to eliminate your old neighbor to expose yourself to unpredictable and aggressive newcomers?

We are all surrounded by germs, on our hands, on our skin, inside our bodies. Most of these germs are our old neighbors. They eke out a living from our bodies. We know them well. Our immune systems are very familiar with them. Whenever their numbers increase rapidly, our immune systems can react rapidly to curb their growth. At the same time, these germs are our best defenders against other new and unknown germs. To these old germs, any newcomers are trespassers who should be eliminated actively. In fact, most antibiotics are produced by germs in fighting against other germs. For example, penicillin is originally produced by Penicillium, a type of fungi.

When we take extraordinary effort to sterilize our environment, we eliminate most of our old neighbors around us. Few old germs are left to defend against new germs our immune systems are not familiar with. We are often unprepared for these aggressive new invaders and overwhelmed by them.

We are advised to wash our hands often and sterilize our environment often. Sterilization kills most of the old germs. But it also destroys the buffer zone that keeps most of the new germs away. Is it healthy to sterilize our environment a lot?

Medical professionals work in an environment with a lot of patients, a lot of germs. It makes sense for them to seek additional protection from generous dose of antiseptics. But for ordinary people, is it a good idea to replace a layer of natural and versatile antiseptics with artificial antiseptics?