Almost everyone knows how to use a toilet and basically how it works - it is in its essence a user-sewer-system interface interconnected by syphons and pipes, which uses water to flush away certain kinds of detritus. Few people realize that the common water-flush toilet took millenia to be developed and that this implementation had a decisive impact on our culture, environment and intercontinental flight behaviour. Our defecation habits date back to prehistoric times, with the advent of civilization and, as a consequence, tumulted cities, getting rid of human waste became and is still a big problem. Since the involved body functions, and the whole subject was always considered being lowly, little is known about the development of sanitary devices. This entry is dedicated to throwing some light one the most stinking chapter of human endeavour, and it will focus on the development of toilets rather than the socio-cultural aspects or defecational behaviour.

The obscure beginnings

Animals prefer secluded places to do the gross-out, while urine is used in many ways throughout nature to mark teritories or to identify single individuals. Humans living in small societies (like small tribes or families) usually emptied their bowels privately somewhere near a stream or somewhere where the stinking and the inconvenient presence of insects would not disturb too much (or in the case of Neanderthals, deep inside the cave, way behind the burial place). Either way, this was not a 'problem' as long as the population remained small. As certain cultures became sedentary, small cities evolved and some creativity was required to deal with the stinking problem.

Primordial Toilets

Small towns soon faced the problem and came up with the idea of cesspools. The dejecta were collected (by servants and slaves) and buried in deep holes far away from the city centre. The defecation took place inside of the respective houses, using chamber pots. In some places the 1st floor of the house would have a protuberance on the backside, and the faeces were collected from there. Wealthy denizens used luxurious toilet chairs, while the poor populace did what they had to do in rivers or on the roadsides. A general description on how common people dealt with defecation can be found in the Bible. Moses Book 5 (Deuteronomy) Chapter 23:


12: Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad /13: And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee /¹

Toilets in ancient societies

The development of sanitation and the level of civilization go hand in hand. Densely populated urban areas like Rome, Athens or Alexandria could not turn their back on this subject, since they had to deal with a daily quota of approximately 1 million litres of urine and 160 tons of human faecal substance. Rome was well known for the good hygienic conditions. In the year 315 AD there were 144 public toilets installed in Rome. But even less densely populated areas came up with the idea of using sanitation devices. The supposedly oldest working Toilet with water flushing can be seen (but NOT used) in the castle of Knossos, Greece - it is still functioning and is said to be about 4000 years old. In India sanitary devices and the use of a main drain dated 2500 BC were found in Mohenjo (western India). Also in China people were considering the problems pertinent to faecal disposal. Recently archaeologists found a toilet with running water (but presumably not a water closet in the strict sense), a stone seat and comfortable armrests in the tomb of a Chinese king (Western Han Dynasty) dated between 206 BC and AD 24 ².

The grand regression in medieval Europe

The collapse of the Roman Empire in the first centuries followed by the emergence of Roman Catholic Christian fundamentalism in Europe in the 8th and 9th century, along with many misinterpretations of this religion led to a grand regression in terms of personal hygiene that in some places lasted until the late 18th century. In the beginning of the medieval ages Roman Catholic clergy came up with two maxims that undermined the invention of hygenic devices for a long time, namely:

a) Washing the carnal body would be a denial of the original sin, and therefore punishable. This was taken literally in Spain which culminated in a peculiar self-dynamic, which is well worth a digression: Before the 'Reconquista' which was the re-conquering of the Iberic peninsula from the hands of the Arabs in the middle of the 15th century by the Catholic, a rather tolerant though heterogeneous society composed of a Jewish and Muslim minority and a Christian majority lived there quite peacefully. After the 'Reconquista' many Jews and Muslims were forcedly (and sometimes unforcedly) baptized. They were now called the 'nuevos conversos' or new-converts. The Catholic church though never stopped being suspicious that those new converts were secretly still performing their heretic rituals. Some Jewish and Muslim rituals involve bathing and cleaning, and for that reason the homes of the 'new converts' had washing facilities. Clean people, or homes with washing basins would draw the attention of the most fanatic Christians. Which in many cases was a dangerous thing.

b) Penitence is good. Living in a stinking house with stinking clothes on, itching and dirty was not regarded as being something healthy, but since this is a form of suffering, and suffering is a form of penitence, it was OK to wander about itching and stinking. Of course many people thought normally even in that particular era, but they had to do it secretly.

In medieval times the faeces were collected in pots and the contents thrown on the street (some cities issued a law which prescribed a cry of warning before emptying the pot in order to prevent unhappy accidents). The 1st floor protuberance was also a popular solution for the problem by then. Note the drawback to primordial times³.

Renaissance and the Rebirth of Hygiene

The massive deaths caused by plagues made some people rethink the issue of hygiene. Eventually they found out that the plagues were not caused by sinning but rather that it was caused the poor hygiene of the cities. By 1210, in isolated places, the first attempts to install public toilets (which were manned by scavengers) led to a considerable improvement of the situation. But it wasn't until the Renaissance in the 15th and 16th century that the situation got slightly better. In that period the closet was invented and implemented in many buildings. It was basically a room in which people could do what they had to into small pots. The contents of these pots were manually taken away. An Englishman living in France named J.D. Harrington solved the manually-getting-rid of faeces problem by inventing the W.C. (water closet) - But it took almost 2 centuries until his invention was taken seriously.

The 18th and 19th Century - The Centuries of Toilets

Like with the biro or the railtrains there was a huge gap between the invention of the W.C. and the broad utilization thereof. The main problem of Harrington's W.C. was the automation of the water disposal. This problem was solved in the late 1730s by the invention of valve-type toilets. The valves though were still very rudimentary, and leaked often. By the 1770s further improvements on the hydraulics followed, making them safer. In many places these toilets are still in use today.

Another major breaktrough came circa 1820 when the flush-type toilet was invented by Albert Giblin in Britain (it is basically the syphon toilet with a water reservoir to flush the load away - the one with the rope) which is still quite common today. There's a frequently found myth about a certain Thomas Crapper having invented the flush-type toilet - not true: He worked on certain developments on the piping of toilets, but he has not invented the flush-type toilet. (Nevertheless his Name is perpetuated in the slang word for 'to defecate'). From the 1820s on no fundamental improvements followed. Minor improvements were: A more economic or ecologically sensible water controlling, ergonomic designs the implementation of canalization and the invention of the toilet-rooms in European homes (Before that the toilet chambers were installed outside of the houses - e.g. in the garden near the cesspool)

Meanwhile in Asia there were already bathing and massaging facilities for the wealthy equipped with toilet-like devices. (Asia was not as affected by the Medieval Ages as Europe). But soon the cheaper European toilets invaded the homes of the less wealthy classes of the Orient.

Further reading

See also the entry on toilet-paper which was invented in 1857 by an american man named Joseph Cayetti.