When it comes to health, the Stanford campus is filled with contradictions. To the casual observer, it would appear to be a highly health-conscious environment, where people are wary of diets and motivated to exercise.

Even with a little rain, hail or gale-force winds, there will never be a time when you won’t see people jogging around Campus Drive or up to the Dish.

At the dining halls, plates are piled up with salads and tofu. In dorm rooms, shelves are stocked with protein powders and other nutritional supplements. And yet, when it comes to something much simpler and more vital to promoting campus health, the lack of enthusiasm and participation is rather worrisome.

I’m not talking about binge drinking or sexually transmitted diseases, but something we all learned about at a much earlier age — or at least should have learned about. I am talking about washing our hands. Somehow, even at Stanford, where people are both educated and generally health-conscious, some find it difficult to participate in this simple post-excretory ritual.

When dozens of undercover investigative reports document the lack of hygienic protocol at dining establishments, we all watch with revulsion. “How horrendous, people must be very lazy to not practice such basic cleanliness,” we think.

And yet, on numerous occasions, in the many lovely bathrooms of Stanford’s dorms, libraries, dorms and classroom buildings, I have personally seen this egregious crime being committed.

Everyone knows that washing our hands ranks high on the list of basic practices required to be a decent person. Our parents taught us to wash our hands just as their parents taught them. But somehow, many generations after handwashing has been found to prevent the spread of infections, the practice still hasn’t caught on.

As early as the 1840s, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes advocated washing one’s hands to prevent childbed fever, a cause of maternal death during childbirth. And by the 1860s, Dr. Joseph Lister introduced the practice of handwashing into hospitals, requiring surgeons to wash their hands with a carbolic acid solution between seeing patients. This novel idea cut the post-operative sepsis death rate to nearly zero.

Since then, abundant research has shown that hand-washing can reduce not just infections acquired in hospitals, but other illnesses as well. This is true in places ranging from daycare centers to restaurants to the homes of regular people.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention proclaims, “Frequent hand-washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.” And yet the CDC still estimates that one out of three people does not wash his or her hands after using the restroom.

The importance of handwashing can’t be overstated, especially at a place like Stanford. Because of the close proximity in which people live, college campuses are the ideal environments for the spread of disease. In fact, it might not be inaccurate to call them troves of festering pestilence.

Still, we are not entirely helpless.

Instead of panicking when the flu vaccine is in short supply, perhaps it would be wise to remember that a little extra handwashing just might do the trick to reduce viral transmission during influenza season. (Hey, if George Bush isn’t getting a flu shot this year, why the hell should you?)

Indeed, one of the most common ways people catch colds and the flu is by rubbing their nose or their eyes after their hands have been contaminated with the virus. In addition, serious diseases like hepatitis A, meningitis and infectious diarrhea (which just so happens to be spread by a fecal-oral transmission route), can easily be prevented if people make a habit of washing their hands.

Even Ebola can be eliminated.

Just kidding. But the general point still stands. (Note: The chances of Ebola breaking out at Stanford are pretty much zero, unless, of course, an infected human or monkey was to board a plane from one of the African regions where past outbreaks have occurred and then spread the virus here. But my guess is that it would be pretty hard to get past airport security while bleeding from the eyes . . . especially if you’re a monkey.)

So now that we are all aware of the problem, the time has come to take action. And so, I call upon all of you, my faithful readers, to join me in my mission — to spread not just the word, but the actual suds-and-scrubbing practice of handwashing across the wide expanses of the Stanford campus.

“But what can I, a mere peon at the hands of The Man and ‘acceptable social protocol,’ do?” you might ask.

Rise up, I say, and cast off your hesitance to offend your friend, dorm-mate, professor or co-worker by calling them on their erroneous ways. Say loudly and in a firm tone of voice, “Excuse me [insert appropriate name or title here], but it would appear that you have forgotten to wash your urine-drenched hands after using the lavatory. Please do so now.”

This should embarrass at least a few people enough to do a quick scrub down. And to all the little Typhoid Marys out there who think you’re just so cute - please do wash your hands, both for your own sake and for the well-being of those around you. And speaking of which, this keyboard I’m typing on in Meyer is really sticky. Yeesh. I think I’ll go wash my hands.

Priya Jayachandran is a junior majoring in human biology. Email her at jpriya@stanford.edu.