The Wake

Soap: A cleansing agent made from a mixture of the salts of fatty acids of natural oils and fats.

Humans have been cleansing themselves since prehistoric times; even cavemen figured out that washing mud off their hands with water was a good thing.

Soap-like substances are known to have been used in ancient Babylon, dating back to 2800 B.C. Ancient Egyptians combined animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create soap for treating skin diseases as well as for regular bathing. The early Roman civilization bathed sans soap, but as the culture evolved, the Greek physician Galen eventually recommended using it for medicinal purposes. Every great civilization has come to realize the benefits of soap (though it did take Europe a plague and three centuries to figure it out).

It seems, though, that Yale University has yet to catch on to what those ancient Babylonians thought of tens of thousands of years ago. In fact, at 305 years without soap, Yale is beginning to rival even 17th century Europe.

Students began agitating a decade ago for soap dispensers to be installed in Yale buildings, complete with exclamations of “We still hope for soap on a rope,” and “Germ free is the way to be” echoed through the Ivy League halls.

Prior to this month, soap was a scarce and precious commodity at Yale, and students began to form a community devoted to keeping soap in the bathrooms. Students and parents would buy it and leave it in a bathroom, hoping that others would do the same. Unfortunately, not everyone cooperated and soap became an obscure product. Soap thefts became commonplace. “I put a little dispenser of liquid soap out and now it’s gone…I hope someone else will put one out,” said Steven Engler. Naturally, these thefts caused students much distress.

James Ponsoldt also commented on the situation. “It’s pretty gross not to have soap in the bathrooms.” He’s right. According to the Mayo Clinic website, “[Hand washing is] one of the best ways to avoid getting sick.” The site also informs us that many ailments such as the common cold, the flu and some gastrointestinal disorders (one of which is infectious diarrhea) are spread through hand-to-hand contact.

Hopefully Yale students will no longer live in fear of contracting a debilitating case of diarrhea from doorknobs, hand holding or finger foods. Yale has instituted a pilot program that includes the introduction of University-sponsored soap in the bathrooms of a whopping three of twelve residential colleges. This experiment is breaking 305 years of tradition, potentially ruining the aesthetic appeal of the bathrooms on campus, and digging very shallowly into the $15.7 billion dollar budget in order to fund and maintain soap dispensers. If the venture is affordable enough, next fall students will be welcomed to Yale with soap dispensers in all twelve buildings, a new Yale; a clean Yale; a Yale where students will greet each other with high-fives and handshakes, rather than small waves between dashes for the nearest toilet.