13th December 2004
Friday, July 30th, 2010
Don't take your toilet for granted
"We are quickening the pace of toilet construction and the international conference is being held at a time when China has already realised unprecedented achievements."
Yu Debin, deputy director of the Beijing Bureau of Tourism, speaking at the World Toilet Summit in Beijing.
The day after God created Man in his own image and likeness, the various systems of the body began a heated debate as to who was the most important and who should be in control of the whole. "We are the most important," shouted the bones, "for without us the creature could not stand upright and there would be no protection for the vital organs." "No way," murmured the muscles, "there are creatures without a skeleton but they cannot do without us. We help the body to move and regulate its temperature." "You tend to forget," intoned the brain, "that without me and the nervous system the creature could not make any sense of his surroundings and none of you could adapt to the environment."
"But all of you need food," pronounced the heart, "and without the circulatory system none of you would be fed and none of you would be cleaned." "In that case," rasped the lungs, "we assume primacy because we supply the oxygen that is essential to the functioning of the creature." "Well how about me and the digestive system?" rumbled the stomach. "We extract all the essential nutrition for the creature to function."
And while the reproductive, lymphatic and integumentary systems all made their point, the two sphincters, the anal and the urethral, decided to cooperate and closed down tightly.
Gradually the cacophony of the competing systems began to slow. The stomach began to swell, the reproductive organs lost their desire, the lungs found it hard to breathe, the heart began to pound, the brain became becalmed as the eyes bulged from their sockets and the tongue thickened. Then the skin began to break out in an unsightly rash. Once the muscles started to shake uncontrollably and the bones began to rattle, all the systems paid homage to the two previously ignored sphincters and agreed that nothing could be done without the cooperation of the urethra and anus.
Since the need to urinate and defecate is irrepressible, one can say that developments in sanitation go arm in arm with civilization, and access to toilet facilities is one of the most basic human rights. This can be confirmed by most of the recently-arrived expats in developing countries, who seek out McDonald's and international hotels expressly for this purpose.
Triumph of the toilet
Sitting-type toilets appeared quite early in human history. The world's oldest toilet, found in Henan province, China, dates back over two millennia. King Minos of Crete owned a flushing water closet over 2,800 years ago. Archaeological excavations confirm the existence of sitting-type toilets in Egypt (2,100 B.C.)-and in the remains of the Harappa civilization in India, at a place called Lothal (62 kilometers from the city of Ahmedabad in western India), in the year 2,500 B.C., the people had water-bearing toilets in each house.
The Romans kept the spirit of progress alive. They were noted for their effort to provide toilets to the masses, not just for the citizens of means and power. Travelers were free to use special vases along the roadways or the squatting facility of public privies (cloacina). Rome reportedly had 144 latrines around the city.
When the Catholic Church began to rule and Europe degenerated into the Dark Ages, cleanliness became equated with paganism and viewed with suspicion. In the absence of proper toilet facilities, people defecated and urinated wherever they could. Plagues and pestilence became common. Hygiene improved slightly once the Crusaders had contact with the Eastern and Muslim traditions. The washing of hands before consuming food became a fashion for the elite but not the masses. It wasn't until millions died in Europe from cholera in 1832, that people began to realize that poor sanitary conditions caused the disease to spread.
Inventing paper
The modern version of the water closet was invented in Britain by John Harrington in 1596 for his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I. Some 200 years later, Alexander Cummings designed a siphon system in 1775. This was patented by Thomas Crapper a century later and the final solution to the problem of ablution was found in 1857 when Joseph Cayetty, a citizen of the USA, invented toilet paper.
When England passed the national Public Health Act in 1848, it insisted that some kind of sanitary arrangement had to exist in every house, whether a flushing toilet, a privy, or an ash pit. The government also released L5 million for sanitary research and engineering, and began to build a sound sewer system. Now that there would be outlets for toilet systems, their manufacture made sense.
With this new incentive for invention, pottery makers, including Josiah Wedgwood, Thomas Twyford, and John Shanks, teamed up with inventors as they replaced brass and metal workings with ceramic parts. By 1858, George Jennings popularized public lavatories. He introduced the novelties by installing them in the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851; over 827,000 people paid to use the 'necessary convenience'.
Then, in 1885, Thomas Twyford pioneered the first trapless toilet and built the first one-piece, free-standing unit on a pedestal base. This eliminated the problem of leaky joints and foul odor and was easy to install.
Although the provision of public facilities commenced in France in 1872 (when the municipalities asked private companies to manage public toilets for a lease period of 20 years), the Victorian era in Britain produced the cleanest, the most ornate and the most architecturally perfect public conveniences of modern times. And they were free to use. They became the envy of the civilized world and the preferred meeting places for male politicians and male pop stars who desired to re-establish intimate links with the common man, a process known as 'cottaging'.
Lament for the loo
Now, in the 21st century, thousands of public conveniences, most of them masterpieces of architecture, are closing throughout the length and breadth of Britain at a time when a survey of 500 leading figures of the art world selected Marcel Duchamp's white urinal, Fountain, as the most influential piece of modern art in history.
The reason behind these closures is that the cash-strapped councils cannot afford the extensive building modifications required to provide wheelchair ramps and lavatories for disabled people, as required by the Disability Discrimination Act, which now applies to all the countries within the EU. This does not pose such a problem for developing countries. New developments incorporate the required facilities and the existing solutions, particularly in rural areas, can be used by all as they usually consist of a hole in the ground.
However, the old masterpieces, so beloved by many, are closing, as the costs of modification are far too high and even impossible to achieve. This is also a reflection of what is happening in many parts of the economy and politics. At the moment the minorities rule. But not too far into the future the tyranny of the minority will be replaced by the tyranny of the majority. Cycles repeat.
From Warsaw Business Journal by Zbigniew Piekarski
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