Professor Richard James, director of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections at the University of Nottingham agreed the evidence on transmission of infection from clothing such as long sleeves was not clear but short sleeves may encourage staff to wash their hands properly.
In "Back Street in Jarrow, Tyneside" (1937), the cat in the foreground is clear enough, but you have to penetrate the smog to see the woman hanging wash on a clothesline in the distance.