![Image](http://drmoss.ca/Web%20Images/img364%20%282%29-1.jpg)
Yes, that was the actual school. Now demolished so that a trashy executive home might sit upon its hallowed ground.
Anyway, up to the present. It's an open secret that most hospital workers are carrying methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and rather hilarious that our masters decline to test us for it - how would they cope with most of the staff being placed on sick leave until they are clear of the bug? There doesn't seem to be any effective way of ridding oneself of the critter, despite regimes of antibiotic ointment up the nose and bactericidal baths. I'm sure I am a carrier, and I'm equally sure you don't want to know the gory details behind that. So I decided to try to, at least, reduce the number of staph on my skin with some good old carbolic soap. My bathroom currently reeks of the stuff and I don't mind it doing so. Carbolic acid isn't quite an acid in the usual sense in organic chemistry, where acids are generally a carbon chain joined to a -COOH or carboxylic acid group. Oddly, it looks like an alcohol, where the group on the end is an -OH. In this case it is a six carbon benzene ring with an -OH joined on to one carbon. It's better known as phenol and some of you might spray it onto your sore throats under the name of Chloraseptic. Anyway, the soap from this maker is strongly scented and not unpleasant to use.
![Image](http://puresoapworks.com/images/bar_carbolic.jpg)
But why is carbolic soap always red? In my childhood it was a kind of puce colour, and it's still red. Why? In a few months I'll be able to say if it seems to work or not. I wouldn't recommend anyone to rush out and buy any of it unless there are Proustian reasons for doing so.
Chris