I hypothesize that sweat acts as a selective disinfectant. This is a relatively easy experiment to conduct (have a bunch of people sweat, put the sweat in one petri dish and water in another, and try to grow some bacteria), but since I don’t have the equipment, I’ll theorize and leave the experimentation to someone who is equipped to, you know, perform science.

There are two theoretical angles that convince me of this: one is physiological behavior (people sweat when they’re sick and when they’re active, and in both cases, an antiseptic effect may be beneficial to the organism. Sweat is also hypothesized to have a sexual function, and indeed a disinfectant may prove especially beneficial in situations where body fluids may be shared) and the other, more compelling reason, is that sweat contains cresols, which happen to be the chemicals found in Lysol.

So someone do the experiment, and please mention me in a footnote or something if you got the idea here 🙂