Did you know that you spend up to 3 years of your lifetime on the toilet? An average person will spend 1 1/2 years of their lifetime in the bathroom. Women spend an average of 1 year, 7 months, and 15 days longer in the bathroom than men. However, men spend more time on the toilet than women do (an hour and 45 minutes every week, compared to an hour and 20 minutes a week for women).
Whatever you may choose to call it, powder room, lavatory, outhouse, washroom, dunny, restroom, latrine, water closet (WC), john, can, crapper or even House of Honor, the toilet is one of the most time-consuming aspects of our lives.
That is quite funny actually, considering that more People In The World Have Mobile Phones rather Than Toilets. 1 billion people still defecate in the open, in the absence of a toilet and, according to the United Nations, 2.6 billion people still lack indoor toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India.
Just think about it! You now have the privilege of playing Candy Crush on your indoor can, but… Where did it all come from? Which primitive individual first had the idea of sitting on a toilet?
Cultures as far back as 3000 BC were flushing away within their own improvised systems of moving water around. Many sources cite ancient Crete’s King Minos (18th century B.C.) as having the world’s first flush toilet, but members of the Harrappa civilization, in what is now India, had toilets in their homes that drained into subterranean clay chambers. The people in Skara Brae, a 31st century BC settlement in what’s now Scotland, even had the idea to use a draining system in combination with a nearby river in order to automatically sweep out their dirty business.
A few thousand years later, the Romans were masters in flushing away waste. Massive aqueducts brought massive volumes of fresh water into Roman cities. Rome’s famous public baths were well stocked with urinal-style toilets that drained into its meticulous sewage system, but private bathrooms were a rarity reserved for the wealthy.
Well, once the Roman empire fell, the idea of public sanitation fell with it. The entire world didn’t go any further ,for quite a few centuries, than using the traditional chamber pot, the most low-tech approach for the most low-tech era when European city dwellers casually threw the contents into the public streets where they mixed with horse droppings.. If you think today’s cities smell bad, just imagine London, Paris or Prague in the 16th century!
It wasn’t until 1596, when a man named John Harrington published his own manual for the assembly of the first flush toilet, a simple idea of combining a mechanical valve and a tank of water, the two basic components that are still found today in our modern “thrones”.
From that point onwards, the history of toilets was marked by small enhancements, such as the constant pool of water developed by Alexander Cummings in 1775 so to finally prevent bad smells. 18th century inventors refined the flushing mechanism and flow of water, whereas their 19th century successors added better drainage and valves that (thankfully) leaked less. English plumber Thomas Crapper, ridiculed for his name as you may have guessed, did much to popularize the private flushing toilet in Europe, leading many to falsely believe he invented it. The only great toilet innovation of the 20th century was that of integrating the water tank into the seat itself, rather than attaching it to a wall. Beyond that, a hundred years of slight tinkering haven’t advanced the basic design one bit, just created variations for the main design.
We have the:
The Flush toilet
The Squat Toilet – Common in Turkish and Japanese households – a porcelain hole in the floor that individuals have to hover over, with their knees bent in a squat position.
Urinals – commonly seen in men’s restrooms.
Incinerating Toilet – instead of using water to flush away waste, it burns excrement and other waste products.
Composting Toilet – composts human waste by removing moisture from excrement.
Outhouse/Pit Toilet/Arborloo – Commonly found at campgrounds or in extremely rural areas – a hole dug in the ground with a small structure built on top of it.
What is mind blowing at this moment is that doctors specialized in colon disease are now promoting the squatting stance, blaming many of the current colon-related diseases on our toilet posture. It seems that the way we relax on the loo, checking that inbox on our smartphones, is actually bad for us. So perhaps these 4k years of inventions will just be sending us back to where we came from… Who knows what the next toilet-related invention will be?
So the toilet as we know it today is a pretty new invention after all. Even commercial toilet paper came pretty late, in 1857, when Joseph Gayetty first advertised TP with aloe, but it was a complete failure. Perhaps marketing it is a remedy for hemorrhoids was not a good idea, because after that, two brothers, Edward and Clarence Scott just went with the classical idea of toilet paper rolls and sales took off!
According to researchers, before toilet paper was invented, people used:
US – Corn cobs, leaves, newsprint or paper catalogue pages,
Early England – Discarded sheep’s wool
Medieval Europe – Straw, hay or grass
India – Water and your left hand
Hawaii – Coconut shells
French Royalty – Lace
Ancient Rome poor – A sponge soaked in salt water, on the end of a stick
Ancient Rome wealthy – Wool and Rosewater
So thankful that toilet paper exists, right?
There are billions of fun facts about toilets out there, so before we go, we gathered the best ones for you.
90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are excreted through urination. Thus, a recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics and even anti-depressants.
The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used (and consequently cleanest)
The inhabitants of ancient Rome had a sewer goddess named Cloacina
The most expensive toilet in the galaxy is found in space. Each toilet in space costs about 19 million dollars.
The toilet is flushed more times during the Super Bowl halftime than at any time during the year. However, the myth that water systems of major cities are on the verge of collapsing due to so many people flushing their toilets during the Super Bowl Half Time Show is actually a myth.
There’s a toilet-themed restaurant in Taiwan, where food is served on miniature toilets.
Urine on the toilet seat–although disgusting, is actually a nearly sterile liquid.
World Toilet Day takes place on November 19 of each year.
King George II of Great Britain died falling off a toilet on the 25th of October 1760.
Some Americans travel to Canada to get around a conservation law which only allows low-flush toilets to be installed. They buy the massive flow toilet in Canada and install them at home. Though eco-friendly, American low-flush toilets, depending on plumbing and who is using them, tend to clog pretty often.
These being said and hoping you’re not watching this while on the can, thanks for watching and don’t forget to subscribe for more interesting videos!
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