Toilet
The earliest known flush toilet dates from 1800 b.c. Featuring a wooden seat, it was installed in the royal palace at Knossos in ancient Crete and used a drainage system with venting air shafts. Water-flushed latrines were in use in the Indus Valley circa 2500-l500 b.c., and by the fourth century a.d. the Romans used them as well. The flush toilet then disappeared for many centuries, and chamber pots, emptied into public streets, became the norm in Europe during the Middle Ages.
The concept of the flush toilet was finally revived around 1590 by Queen Elizabeth's godson Sir John Harington (l561-l6l2). He designed and had installed in his home a water closet that featured an overhead water tank with a valve that released the water on demand. Although the queen had one of her godson's inventions installed in her palace, the water closet did not catch on. Drainage and venting problems made these early toilets smelly and unsanitary, and plumbing and sewage systems were primitive or nonexistent. Amazingly, even the lavish French palace of Versailles, built in 1661, had no toilets; residents and guests were burdened with the indignity of relieving themselves outdoors among the statuary and shrubbery.
Water closet design languished until English watchmaker Alexander Cummings patented a version with an improved valve in 1775. British cabinetmaker Joseph Bramah patented a design with an even better hinged valve in 1778. Toilets then began to come into common use in England. A major problem remained, however: disposal of their contents. Water closets typically drained into cesspools, which, once filled, invariably resulted in leaking pipes that fouled the surrounding soil. Drainage into sewer systems usually resulted in discharge into a nearby river, polluting the drinking water supply.
These problems were alleviated with the invention of the septic system in the mid-1800s and the development of predischarge sewage treatment. London had a modern sewage system by the 1860s. That year, Bramah's water closet design was improved by London plumber Thomas Crapper, who added an automatic flush shutoff, his last name becoming a fixture in English slang.
Flush toilets only came into use in the United States after 1870, and then slowly, because so many homes lacked running water. The outhouse or privy, backed up by the chamber pot, remained standard in both rural America and tenements well into the twentieth century. Newly popular today are low flush toilets which use less water and a strong vacuum system as an environmentally sound process. Early water saver toilets did not work well, although recent ones operate well. Most campgrounds and many camper vehicles use composting toilets that process human waste naturally over time.
Gayetty's Medicated Paper was the first modern—that is, soft—toilet paper, introduced by New Yorker Joseph C. Gayetty in 1857. Toilet paper in rolls was the contribution of Philadelphia brothers E. Irvin and Clarence Scott in 1879.
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