Remaking the John. The Invention and Reinvention of the Toilet

68 Pages·2014·7.058 MB·English

by  Francesca Davis DiPiazza

DID YOU KNOW THAT ABOUT 40 PERCENT
OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION LIVES
WITHOUT TOILETS? that’s more than two
billion people, most of whom live in rural areas or
crowded urban slums. And according to the world
health organization, diseases spread by the lack
of basic sanitation kill more people every year than
all forms of violence, including war. in particular,
diarrheal diseases kill more than two million
people each year, most of them children.
Everyone needs to go to the bathroom, and
from the citizens of the world’s earliest
human settlements to astronauts living on the
international Space Station, the challenge has
been the same: how to safely and effectively
dispose of human body wastes. toilet history
includes everything from the hunt for the causes
of infectious disease to twenty-fi rst-century
marvels of engineering.
in remaking the John, you’ll explore the many ways
people across the globe and through the ages
have invented—and reinvented—the toilet. you
will learn about everything from ancient roman
sewers to the world’s fi rst fl ush toilets. You’ll also
fi nd out about the twenty-fi rst-century Reinvent
the toilet challenge—an engineering contest
designed to spur creation of an ecologically
friendly, water-saving, inexpensive, and sanitary
toilet. And while you’re at it, mark world toilet
day on your calendar. observed every November
19, this international day of action works to
raise awareness about the modern world’s many
sanitation challenges.
REINFORCED BINDING
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BOOKS / MINNEAPOLIS
ChaPteR one
to my editor, Peg goldstein,
for spiffing up my work over the years.
thanks from “Francie”
Text copyright © 2015 by Francesca Davis DiPiazza

All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission
of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an
acknowledged review.

Twenty-First Century Books
A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
241 First Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

Main body text set in Gamma ITC Std 11/15.
Typeface provided by International Typeface Corp.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DiPiazza, Francesca, 1961–
Remaking the john : the invention and reinvention of the toilet /
by Francesca Davis DiPiazza.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978–1–4677–2645–0 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978–1–4677–4794–3 (eBook)
1. Toilets—History—Juvenile literature. I. Title.
TH6498.D56 2015
644’.6—dc23 2013040138

Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – DP – 7/15/14
2
intrODuctiOn 4
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
CHAPTER ONE
PitS, POtS, anD PiPeS 6
///////////////////////////////////////////
CHAPTER TWO
OverflOw! 16
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
CHAPTER THREE
the Dark StreaM Of DiSeaSe 26
////////////////////
CHAPTER FOUR
Mucking abOut in the
twentieth century 34
///////////////////////////////////////////////
CHAPTER FIVE
everybODy liveS DOwnStreaM 44
/////////////////
SOURCE NOTES 56
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 58
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 60
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
INDEX 63
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
intRoduCtion
4
the art of living together without turning the city into a
dunghill has [to be] repeatedly discovered.
—Aldous huxley, twentieth-century british writer and social commentator, n.d.
H
alf a solid pound (0.2 kilograms), plus 47 ounces (1.4
liters) of liquid. According to the medical journal
Gut , that’s how much feces and urine an adult human
produces, on average, every day. It adds up to about 182 pounds
(83 kg) of feces and 134 gallons (507 liters) of urine per person
per year. Multiply that by seven or eight billion—as the number of
people on Earth steadily increases—and you’ve got a lot of waste.
What should be done with it? People have only a few options:
leave it, bury it, put it in waterways, or recycle it as fertilizer
or fuel. Inventions along one or another of these lines turn up
over and over again throughout history. From the citizens of the
world’s first settlements to astronauts living on the I nternational
Space Station (ISS), humans have figured out various ways to
dispose of body wastes. Sometimes the ideas have been brilliant,
and sometimes they’ve led to terrible suffering. Toilet history
includes everything from the hunt for the cause of infectious
disease to marvels of engineering. Toilet habits even turn up
in religion, literature, and art. There are centuries of creative
responses to the question “What should we do with all this waste?”
Facing page: At the annual Reinvent the Toilet Fair, sponsored by the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, inventors present toilets that use little water, kill
germs, recycle waste, and are affordable for people living in poor nations.
55
ChaPteR one
PitS, POtS, PiPeS
anD
outside the camp you shall have a place set aside to
be used as a latrine. you shall also keep a trowel in
your equipment and with it, when you go outside to
ease nature, you shall first dig a hole and afterward
cover up your excrement.
—the book of deuteronomy
T
he great outdoors has always been the number one place
for people to “do their business.” More than ten thousand
years ago, before the invention of farming, people
practiced open defecation. Early hunter-gatherers urinated and
defecated in waterways or on the ground. Since hunter-gatherer
bands moved regularly, they never had to deal with the long-term
accumulation of waste in one spot.
When people began to farm, they settled into small villages.
Over time, agriculture began to support larger communities.
Villages became large towns. Early city dwellers used rivers, lakes,
or simple holes in the ground as toilets. They also used pots and
other containers. When the containers were full, people dumped
the waste in nearby waterways.
Because townspeople didn’t move regularly the way
hunter-gatherers did, they had to figure out how to dispose of
accumulating waste. Early farmers learned that human and
animal waste can enrich the soil. Some farmers collected human
waste, allowed it to decompose, and then spread it on their fields.
The decayed waste released nutrients that helped plants grow
taller and stronger.
But human waste also contains germs and parasites.
Archaeologists (scientists who study past cultures) have found
Facing page: This structure in the ancient ruins of Mohenjo Daro in modern-day
Pakistan was probably a toilet. In addition to toilets, the city had a network of
sewers that emptied into the Indus River.
77
evidence of parasites in the organs of ancient mummies and in other
ancient human remains. The parasites probably spread to humans who
ate food or drank water that was contaminated with human waste.
Even though ancient peoples didn’t know about germs, they still
connected the dots between filth and disease. They generally avoided
drinking or eating anything that smelled or looked nasty. Ancient
religious lawmakers believed that body wastes offended God. In the
Hebrew Bible, the lawgiver Moses instructs the Jewish people to keep
their camps clean. He tells them to dig holes to use as toilets and to
cover their waste with dirt. Such religious laws protected public health,
even if that wasn’t the lawmakers’ intention.
iNdoor PlumbiNg
About five thousand years ago, the villagers of Skara Brae in present-
day Scotland constructed what might be the world’s first indoor toilets.
Archaeologists have found closet-like openings in the walls of the
village’s ancient stone cottages. The openings had drains beneath them.
Historians think it’s likely that these areas served as toilets.
Some houses in the ancient city of Mohenjo Daro (built in what
is now Pakistan around 2600 BCE) also had indoor drains. They were
connected to large covered s ewers that ran along the city’s main streets.
TThhee sseewweerrss wweerree mmaaddee ooff ccllaayy aanndd bbrriicckk aanndd ccaarrrriieedd wwaasstteewwaatteerr ttoo
tthhee IInndduuss RRiivveerr..
I Inn aanncciieenntt ttiimmeess,, tthhee bbeesstt ttooiilleettss wweerree
rreesseerrvveedd ffoorr tthhee u pper classes. For example,
tthhee rrooyyaall iinnhhaabbiittaannttss ooff aa ppaallaaccee iinn
tthhee aanncciieenntt GGrreeeekk cciittyy ooff KKnnoossssooss
uusseedd aa wwaatteerr--wwaasshheedd ttooiilleett aallmmoosstt
ffoouurr tthhoouussaanndd yyeeaarrss aaggoo.. AAfftteerr
This ceramic chamber pot from
ancient China dates to the third
or fourth century CE. Designed
specifically for men, the vessel has
an opening for urination and a
handle for emptying the waste.
8 Remaking the john