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Parasites Versus the Roman Military

The Roman Empire is widely admired for its engineering — a network of over 400,000 kilometers of Roman roads, aqueducts supplying water to the largest cities in Europe and West Asia, and bridges spanning wide rivers. And they somehow managed to build all of that while limited by the use of Roman numerals! However, their knowledge of public health was extremely limited. Their sanitation was impressive for its time, but they didn't know about water filtration and purification to eliminate parasites. A recent study in

Who Pooped in the Perfume? Feces and Herbs in Ancient Medications

Scent and ritual were important components of medicine in the ancient world. The temples of ancient Egypt were filled with clouds of incense. Imperial Roman baths were perfumed. Medical texts from Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire described the use of aromatic herbs, resins, and oils. Excrement was also an important component of medications. Egyptian texts from the sixteenth century BCE through the early third century CE writings of Galen and fifth century Chinese medical texts describe the use of feces, often in combination

Kohler Wants You to Pay Them to Monitor and Share Your Toilet Use

In October, 2025, Kohler announced Dekoda, a US$ 600 device that clips onto the rim of your toilet and sends reports on your urine and feces to your smartphone. You also have to pay monthly or annually for a subscription for the smart-phone app to communicate with it and then analyze and present results. This product and subscription seem ideal for people who are unable to look into the toilet and make the most basic of qualitative assessments. Or, perhaps, too squeamish to look

The Ninja Toilet Assassination

Uesugi Kenshin was one of the most powerful daimyō or feudal lords of Japan. For centuries a Shōgun or warlord really controlled the country while the Emperor, believed to be directly descended from the gods, was cloistered in the Imperial capital of Kyōto, carrying out Shintō rituals to ensure that the gods continued to favor Japan. The regional daimyō commanded samurai warriors, and reported to the Shōgun. Uesugi lived 1530–1578, during the Sengoku Jidai or, literally, "Warring States period". Civil wars waged through most

The Horrible Death of Edmund Ironside

If you're not yet terrified enough of the horrible fates that might befall you in the bathroom, let's look at the death of Edmund Ironside, a king of the English in the early 11th century who was assassinated while sitting on the toilet. Edmund, born around 990 CE, was King of the English back when the men in that position were known by names in Old English ( Ēadmund ) as well as Old Norse ( Játmundr ) and Latin — ( Edmundus ). The

Trump's Toilet of Treason

In 2016 the U.S.A. elected Donald Trump, a serially bankrupt casino owner and former game show host, as its President. On 8 June 2023 the U.S. Department of Justice issued a grand jury indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts relating to his mishandling of classified documents after his presidency. 31 of the counts fall under the Espionage Act, as the mishandled documents included details of U.S. intelligence analysis and military planning. The other six counts have to do with making false statements to

Who Bought Hitler's Toilet?

A toilet once used by Adolf Hitler has disappeared from public view, entering a private collection. It might now be owned by a Hitler-obsessed billionaire who exerts strong influence over a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. In 2014 I was in New Jersey doing consulting work. I had read that Adolf Hitler's toilet had somehow ended up in an automobile repair garage nearby, so of course I went looking for it. My timing was fortunate, because just four months later the garage owner sold the

The Worm-Riddled Friars of Medieval Cambridge

It was a puzzle. Friars in medieval monasteries lived far cleaner lives than the lay people outside. The monastery latrines were isolated and kept clean. Their gardens produced fresh vegetables. Many monasteries had running water systems, a luxury that even the nobility lacked. The friars often outlived commoners due to superior health, often due at least in part to their more nutritious diet. But at the Augustinian friary in Cambridge during the 12th through 14th centuries, the friars were roughly twice as likely as

Pee-cycling: A Grass-Roots Approach to Greener Agriculture

Large-scale agriculture needs plenty of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. By 2010, world demand for nitrogen fertilizer climbed above 100 million tonnes per year. Industrial operations and mining can provide the needed chemical fertilizers, but at enormous costs in money and pollution. Could recycled urine play a significant role in making agriculture a more "green" undertaking? Possibly. Studies indicate that urban waste water contains enough nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to offset more than 13% of the agricultural fertilizer demand. The value of those possibly recovered

İstanbul: Sludge Surveillance and Sea Snot

There's good news and bad news about Turkey's sewage. The good news — they led the world in an aspect of SARS-CoV-2 public health work. While several countries had discovered the coronavirus in the inputs to sewage plants, Turkey was the first to investigate and find SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in the resulting sludge, an end product possibly destined for spreading on agricultural land. As for the bad news — in 2020 the Sea of Marmara became covered with a mucus-like film. It's the result of pollution,

Uroscopy, or the Ancient Science of Pee-Examining

Does your doctor examine your urine — its color, its cloudiness, its odor, and even its taste? Not any more, unless you go to a quack who practices what they believe to be medieval medical techniques. But uroscopy was the primary medical "lab test" from the 4th millennium BCE through the European Renaissance. Hippocrates and Galen, the fathers of western medicine, were keen practitioners of uroscopy. That led to uroscopy's use in Byzantine medicine, which led in turn to its adoption by Arab physicians and

Confederate Shrine Almost Repurposed As A Toilet

If you want to really make your feelings clear, then defile an offensive shrine by converting it into a latrine. The tradition goes back at least to the 9th century BCE, as described in the Hebrew Bible. Back then it was shrines to the deity Ba'al. Now it's the violently pro-slavery Confederacy. Jefferson Davis deserted from his position with the U.S. Army to become the President of the Confederate States of America, fighting to preserve the southern "peculiar institution" of slavery. The United Daughters

Maya Water Filtration

The Maya city of Tikal had an effective water filtration system. Between about 165 BCE and 1055 CE their main water reservoir used a mixture of the mineral zeolite and coarse, sand-sized crystalline quartz. The Maya people in Central America built elaborate systems of water management during the Late Preclassic to Late Classic cultural period. The Maya rulers linked themselves with the provision of water for their people. Their water system surpassed what the Spanish invaders of the 1500s had back at home. Europeans

Why Do We Call It A "Toilet"?

So many names, and so much confusion and urban legends. Yes, john and crapper and loo but not for the commonly provided reasons. We will debunk some urban legends, but we will find that the joking term "the Royal Throne" actually has a basis in history. We'll also see where we got the terms jordan, jakes, gong, commode, chamber pot, stool, commode, and more. English has many alternatives for the world "toilet" because of the language's history and the cultures who spoke forms

Groom of the King's Stool

Kings and queens may have absolute power, but they don't rule in a vacuum. Others near the seat of power may wield considerable power. And in many monarchies, power has concentrated around a literal seat of power — the ruler's chamber pot. The best place to be was sitting next to the king while he sat on his padded, velvet-covered toilet box, voiding his bowels into the pewter chamber pot inside. In Tudor England, politics happened in the royal court, not in parliament. The Lord

Making Textiles? You'll need Urine, Seaweed, and Shale

It was the 16th century, the beginning of the early modern period in England, after the end of the late Middle Ages. Henry VIII, King of England, wanted an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Pope Clement VII, already dealing with religious and political unrest, plus a Turkish invasion of Europe, refused. That disagreement between two powerful and obstinate leaders kicked off a chain of events that led to the English Reformation, the founding of the English chemical industry, and the annual

Fecal Fountains and Pathogen Plumes

The first warnings about the hazards of vigorous flushing began to appear six months into the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, in the summer of 2020. Several studies were demonstrating that "toilet plumes" launched by turbulent flushes could spread the pandemic. We know two things. First, infected people shed viral particles in their feces. Second, turbulent water and air flow launch a geyser of fecal mist, an aerosol of poop-borne pathogens. And so, it's important to close the lid before flushing! It's especially important for public

Ba'al's Shrine Becomes a Latrine

It was the late 9th century BCE, the beginning of the Iron Age. Jehu had been proclaimed king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in an unusual fashion. He first solidified his position by killing his predecessor and the King of Judah. Then he killed Jezebel, the most notorious woman of the age. He had all the royal princes of Samaria killed and their heads piled outside the city gate. Next, he invited the worshipers of Ba'al to a supposed ceremony, and trapped and

The Erfurt Latrine Disaster

It was 1184 in the Duchy of Thuringia. Ludwig the Pious was feuding with an Archbishop. A German king, soon to become Holy Roman Emperor, stepped in to try to settle things down. He brought Ludwig and the Archbishop together with the Empire's nobility, meeting in a large room in the church in Erfurt. The room was above a large latrine, which was above a cesspit. Disaster struck as the meeting room's floor collapsed. Sixty nobles from across the Holy Roman Empire fell two

SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in Italian Sewers Tracks COVID-19 Spread

My recent blog postings have reported that researchers in the Netherlands were the first to report that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which appeared in late 2019, could be detected in municipal wastewater systems. That was followed by a report from France which reported that the level of viral genetic material in untreated sewage closely tracks the clinical case load. That is, the more cases of COVID-19 that there are in a municipal area, the higher the levels of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material to be found in

Parody or Obsession? Welcome to the 18th Century Internet

Samuel Rolleston was a clergyman in southeastern England from the 1730s until 1766. But today he's best known for his surprisingly strong and detailed opinions about defecating and urinating in public. Rolleston's best-known writing is a two-part short book published in 1751, starting with "A philosophical dialogue concerning decency". It's a fictional dialogue between the narrator, standing in for the author, and two friends of philosophical mindsets. They discuss, in detail, how most people want privacy for the natural and necessary acts of urinating

SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in the Paris Sewers

A recent blog posting reported that researchers in the Netherlands were the first to find that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which appeared in late 2019, could be detected in municipal wastewater systems before cases were officially detected and reported by public health systems. Soon afterward, researchers in France found that the levels of viral genetic material in untreated sewage closely tracked increases and decreases in case loads. Actually, it anticipated clinical case trends. France had a rapid rise in cases, and then aggressive lockdown and

Out of Toilet Paper? Consult Rabelais

The most famous book by one of the greatest writers in history suggests some unexpected toilet paper alternatives — hats, hares, and hens, just to get started on his long list. François Rabelais was a physician, monk, and writer of the French Renaissance, in the first half of the 16th century. He is considered one of the greatest writers of world literature and a founder of modern European writing. His most famous work is Gargantua and Pantagruel, a series of five (or perhaps just four)

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in Sewage

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus appeared in East Asia in late 2019, and was spreading world-wide in early 2020. It causes the severe acute respiratory syndrome known as COVID-19. The general public and the media referred to both the virus and the disease as "coronavirus". COVID-19 is a respiratory disease. It leads to a life-threatening condition similar to pneumonia. It's spread by people shedding viral particles in their breath, when coughing or even just breathing, within a range of about two meters. It's encased in a

The Space Diaper Kidnapping

A sexy love triangle. Space flight. And adult diapers. This case had everything. US astronaut Lisa Nowak flew into space on the Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-121 mission in July 2006. She operated the robotic arms of the shuttle and the International Space Station. Meanwhile her personal life was going off the rails. She had married Richard Nowak, who had been her classmate at the U.S. Naval Academy and naval flight school in the mid 1980s. She graduated from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate

Why Do People Hoard Toilet Paper?

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus appeared in far eastern Eurasia in late 2019. Within a few months it had spread around the world as COVID-19 or coronavirus disease 2019. People were suffering and dying because of an invisible and easily transmitted pathogen. And so, there was panic around the world. Mobs of anxious people swarmed stores, buying all the paper products. Shelves were suddenly bare. Any additional supply disappeared as soon as it arrived. This was not the first time. Toilet paper is now a common

Where Are the English-Speaking Bidets?

I'm writing this the day after being interviewed by Larissa Romensky of the Australian Broadcasting Company. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic was causing deaths and panic. She had two main questions. First, why is much of the British-derived world — the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States — overwhelmingly paper-based? The bidet is much cleaner for the user, and better for the planet. Second, what would it take to change that? This interview took place March 20, 2020, when the U.S. was slowly beginning

The Coriolis Force Won't Reverse Your Toilet

The Coriolis Effect is definitely real. It drives ocean currents and weather patterns. But does it make toilets flush and tubs drain the opposite direction when you cross the equator? No. Let me lay some science on you. And if that doesn't convince you, I'm the Toilet Guru and I have experienced toilet flushes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. I can report that flush direction is a random mix everywhere. Keep reading for the details and pictures. First, though, you're exploring a

Roman Toilet Humor

The opulent public latrines at Antiochia ad Cragnum around 200 CE were decorated by dirty jokes in graphical form. The visual humor played on classic Greek myths which had been adapted by the Romans. In this version, Narcissus was enchanted by his own phallus, rather than his standard distraction of his beautiful face. And, Ganymede's sexual situation was more explicit than usual. Narcissus or Νάρκισσος is described in myth as a beautiful hunter, obsessed with his own appearance. The mosaics in the latrine floor

Fire and Feces — Alaska Prehistory

Fire and Feces would be an excellent name for a Guns 'n' Roses cover band. But it's also how early human presence in North America can be traced. A recent study describes "direct evidence of both human fecal presence and sustained burning of Arctic Alaskan landscapes as early as 32,000 years ago." People moved from today's Siberia to Alaska through Beringia, the area now submerged beneath the Bering Stait. The traditional theory, based on archaeology and study of the ancient environmental conditions, has been

Brown Gold: Stool Banks and Fecal Transplants

A healthy human digestive tract hosts a typical flora, a population of many varieties of micro-organisms. A round of antibiotic treatment can kill most of the patient's gut bacteria, allowing just one species to dominate. That leads to medical problems. One bacterium in particular, commonly known as C. difficile, is responsible for many troublesome infections. It can lead to chronic diarrhea. A strange-sounding treatment, a fecal transplant, is often helpful. Just as its name tells us, the procedure only needs some spare feces. The raw

The Kosher Crustaceans of New York

In the spring of 2004, rabbis in Brooklyn noticed small white specks in the tap water. These were copepods, tiny animals. New York City gets its drinking water from a clean natural source well outside the city. It is one of the few cities in the U.S. that are exempt from federal requirements for filtering their drinking water. The other such cities, however, including Seattle, Boston, and San Francisco, don't have large populations of Orthodox Jews. The copepods are tiny, but theologically significant. Copepods

Always Go Pee, Even at a Formal Party — The Death of Tycho Brahe

Famous astronomer Tycho Brahe famously died from being overly polite. He attended a formal banquet. He really needed to use the toilet, but he refused to get up from his seat because it would have been a breach of etiquette. Once the banquet was over, he found that he now was unable to urinate. That condition continued for eleven days without passing any urine, and then he died. Don't die like Tycho Brahe. Get up and pee if you need to. Even if you're

Latrines and Lübeck: Toilets Reveal Hanseatic History

The Hanseatic League was a commercial organization that grew to nation-like power across northwestern Europe. It flourished from the late 1100s through the mid 1400s, dominating trade through the Baltic Sea and across the northern coast of continental Europe. The field of molecular archaeoparasitology has identified significant developments in its founding city of Lübeck. Material from the city's latrines and cesspits show a significant change in diet around 1300. That's right, Lübeck's latrines reveal information about economic and cultural changes. First, the parasites, because

The Tokyo Bureau of Sewerage

I must admit that this isn't the typical tourist site. And I swear that I wasn't even looking for it. I was walking around the neighborhood one morning, before moving on to my next destination in Japan, and there it was. The headquarters of the Bureau of Sewerage for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. I was staying in the Asakusa area of Tokyo. Asakusa is in Taitō-ku or Taitō Ward, north of Akihabara and east of Ueno. That's a great place to stay. There are

Odorless? I Doubt It

In the 1870s, inventors were trying to de-stink the new-fangled indoor flush toilet. One design relied on a constant air flow through a ventilating chimney. Flush toilets were just appearing in homes in the late 1800s. The ancients had flush toilets as far back as the Indus River Civilization in 2600 BC, but they disappeared in Europe when the Roman Empire collapsed. But now they had finally returned, and they were connected to the new systems of municipal sewage systems. The good news was

Airline Toilet Misadventures

Toilets on board airliners can fail or be abused in various ways. The waste tank fills, the water tank empties, or a deranged passenger smears his feces all over two lavatory compartments. And don't expect aircraft toilets to make sense. As the aircraft toilet page explains, there is no requirement for U.S. airliners to provide or clean on-board toilets. However, they are required to have ashtrays and slots to discard razor blades, even though smoking and razor blades are illegal on board. A strange

The Earth Closet System

Did you ever look at a modern toilet and ask, "What if I built something similar to that, except using dirt instead of water?" Someone not only asked that, they built it! Ancient people had water-based flush toilets at least as early as 2600 BC. However, the technology was forgotten in Europe as the Roman Empire fell apart. The Dark Ages were a grim time. In England, flush toilets were only reinvented a little before 1600. Alexander Cummings (and not Thomas Crapper !) obtained

The Cultural History of Train Toilets

Or "Don't mind the filthy immigrants". In the 1880s, American trains featured Ladies' Lavatories, Gentlemens' Lavatories, and Immigrants' Lavatories. I learned this from Scientific American, which was a weekly publication in the late 1880s. 19th century volumes are available at archive.org. The content can seem odd by today's standards. There are announcements of patent filings, successful and not. Plus "how-to" advice for sometimes dangerous light industrial and chemical processes for the home enthusiast. Some of the articles demonstrate the Victorian era's obsession with protecting

Don't Put The "P" In "Pool"!

Surveys say that one in five people admit to urinating in the swimming pool. That's how many admit to it, so imagine how many people really do! "It's harmless", they say, "there's chlorine in pool water." Yes, but that actually makes it worse. There is chlorine, but it's there to kill microorganisms. The danger is that it reacts with uric acid to create hazardous chemicals. A recent study by a chemical engineer at Purdue University along with three chemists from China Agricultural University reports

The International Toilet Seat Trade

I somehow stumbled over the existence of a rather expensive book analyzing the international trade in wooden toilet seats. Really! The Icon Group International published a book titled "The 2007-2012 Outlook for Wood Toilet Seats in Greater China". Wow! And it's available for the low, low price of just US$ 495. Hmmm. That seems like a somewhat exorbitant price, especially when it's a forward-looking prediction for a time period that has already passed. But still, this is a narrowly-focused publication for specialists. The People's Republic

Geopolitical Bee Feces in Southeast Asia

In the early to mid 1980s, the United States accused the Soviet Union of conducting biochemical warfare in several Asian countries. Scientists found that the claimed biochemical weapons were actually bee droppings. The episode became a textbook case in how not to investigate and publicize suspected geopolitical misbehavior. The mysterious events had occurred since 1975, but in 1981 the U.S. made a public accusation of war crimes by the U.S.S.R. Alexander Haig, the U.S. Secretary of State, made a speech to the Berlin Press

You Can Flush But You Can't Hide

Researchers have discovered that what you flush down the toilet can reveal your deepest secrets. Law enforcement agencies in China are already analyzing what you flush to discover if you might be abusing prescription and illegal drugs. Scientists call this "wastewater-based epidemiology". By mid 2000s, studies were looking for metabolites, traces of drugs broken down in the body and excreted through urine. By the mid 2010s, this research was mainstream. So far, outside China, this has been limited to community-wide studies. What drugs are

Ants Build Tiny Toilets

A group of biologists have discovered that some ants set aside areas for toilets within their colony. The researchers at Universität Regensburg in Bavaria studied Lasius niger ants, the common black garden ant found across Europe and parts of the Americas and Asia. They form colonies typically containing 4,000 to 7,000 workers. Disease is a significant challenge for social animals with large colonies in confined spaces, as they are especially vulnerable to contagion. Refuse and fecal matter can be threats. Many social insects have

Flush With Cash, a Swiss Mystery

Why would someone flush €100,000 down the toilet? It sounds crazy, but that's exactly what happened during the summer of 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland. A branch of the UBS Group AG bank on the Rue de la Corraterie in central Geneva had a plumbing problem. A toilet near the bank vault containing hundreds of safe deposit boxes was stopped up. Possibly multiple toilets, authorities aren't releasing all the details. The plumbers found that the waste pipe was clogged with €500 notes, many of which

Beware the Russian Dung Gun

A Russian designer has come up with a system to fire human waste out of the main gun of Russian battle tanks and other armored vehicles. The patent description starts with an explanation of how such a system is needed in situations where the vehicle is sealed against NBC or Nuclear – Biological – Chemical threats. But it soon comes around to the real intent. It would be so gratifying, so useful for crew morale, to know that your feces are being fired in explosive shells

The Deadly Cocoliztli

Spanish forces overthrew the Aztec Empire in today's Mexico, killing their king and thousands more in the initial massacre. But the majority of Aztec deaths came from disease, which scientists now believe was worsened by the disruption of the Aztec's sophisticated sewage system. The Aztec people had a sophisticated culture in central Mexico in the 1300s to the 1500s. Their three principal city-states formed an alliance that controlled what is often referred to as an empire. Their cities were filled with amazing architecture and

Need Soil? Start With Ash and Sewage

A group of scientists in the U.K. have studied anthropogenic soil formation in Orkney, a set of islands off the north coast of Scotland. What is "anthropogenic soil"? Just like it says, it's man-made soil. Man-made? During the Neolithic or the New Stone Age? Yes! It wasn't intentionally manufactured, you see. This soil is the result of collecting ash and human waste in a relatively barren area. It can be used to locate areas of human settlement, possibly deriving some information about the dates

The Maya People Had A Pressurized Water Supply

The ancient Maya are seen for some reason as excellent builders but as no more than mediocre engineers, while the Romans are praised for their engineering skill. That's unfair. The Romans used a ridiculous numbering system. They could, with a lot of effort, do addition, so they could keep track of some logistical details. But the sort of mathematics you need to do true engineering design and analysis is far beyond the Roman numeral system. During the Classic Maya period, roughly 250-600 CE, the

Discovering the Roman Military Diet through Biochemistry

The Romans built defensive walls along their northern borders in Britain. How difficult would it be to cross such a wall? The Romans had figured out how to make a formidable set of obstacles using little more than the existing soil. At forts, the first obstacle might include wading through their cesspit! Both the large-scale coast-to-coast walls and the perimeters of attached or nearby forts used a sequence of obstacles. They dug a ditch, piling the removed soil along the interior bank of the

Switzerland's Golden Sewage

About 95 pounds of gold and 6,600 pounds of silver pass through Switzerland's wastewater stream every year. Swiss refineries handle 70% of the world's gold production, A fraction of that makes its way into the sewers. The gold and silver certainly get our attention as they are classic precious metals. The amounts in national sewage add up to values of about 1.5 million Swiss Francs worth of each (or about 2 million US$ each). Several valuable rare earth metals and other trace elements appear

Coffee, Tea, or Coliform?

The horror stories continue: "Flight attendants will never drink tea or coffee on board because it's made from water believed to be frequently contaminated." Coffee and tea are made with water stored in on-board tanks, not water brought aboard at each stop in plastic bottles. The on-board tanks are the responsibility of the airline. They can be topped up as needed at any airport, although the airlines try to refill the water tanks at the aircraft's home airport in order to save mony. The

How Your Pee Can Change The Sex Of Fish And Reptiles

Human urine and thus wastewater treatment plant output can contain hormones. Some of this is natural output, but some comes from medical hormone treatments. Scientists are discovering that populations of fish and reptiles are changing their sex because of hormones in the water. And, in some cases, fish populations are crashing because almost all of the males are changing to females and the females can't produce viable eggs. Chromosomes determine the sex of many, but not all, animals. In humans and most other mammals,

Guns and Toilets at the U.S. Capitol

The U.S. Capitol Police force received special training in 2015. The topic? How to use public toilets without leaving their guns behind. USCP officers had accidentally left their guns behind in restrooms in the Capitol building three times during the first four months of the year. Several news organizations reported the story in May 2015. The Chief officer of that armed police force, Kim C. Dine, was called to explain the matter to Congress. He said: "We are now providing additional training on what

The End of Open Defecation?

The term open defecation became commonly used after the UN observed the International Year of Sanitation in 2008 and the first annual World Toilet Day in 2013. It refers simply to people defecating outdoors, in fields, streams, or alleyways, and not into toilets. r.i.c.e. report on open defecation The World Health Organization estimated in 2014 that about 1 billion people, 15% of the global population, practice open defecation. The Research Institute for Compassionate Economics report has maps showing open defecation rates world-wide. WHO/UNICEF Progress

Geopolitics, Espionage, and Poop

A story carried by the BBC in late January 2016 reported that Joseph Stalin spied on Mao Zedong and other world leaders by collecting and analyzing their feces. Stalin is said to have directed his KGB henchman Lavrenti Beria to set up a secret department tasked with surreptitiously collecting and analyzing feces to gain insight into their targets' medical and psychological states. However, this isn't the only example of espionage via the toilet! The U.S. and France also tried to exploit this questionable source

Do You Poop Gold?

Gold and other valuable metals appear in the wastewater stream. No one is excreting the proverbial golden brick. Some of the flow into the sewage system goes through surface runoff, and many of the metals come from dirt and dust on roads and parking lots. Other metals come from manufacturing, especially of semiconductors and other electronics. A sewage treatment facility in Japan discovered that their treated sludge contained more gold per ton than the ore at Japan's best gold mine. Some of the gold

£290,000 Fine for Missing Toilet Paper

In March 2017, a British Airways flight from London to Barbados was held at the airport for over five hours because of missing supplies, including toilet paper. The airline may be required to pay delayed passengers up to £291,200 in compensation. Flight BA 2153 was scheduled to depart London Gatwick at 13:40 on Sunday, March 5th. The plane, a Boeing 777, had 280 passengers on board. It was scheduled to cross the Atlantic and arrive on the Caribbean island of Barbados at 18:37 local

Panchagavya, an Ayurvedic elixir of dung and urine

Traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine advocates using Panchagavya as a cure-all for ailments ranging from diabetes to cancer, from schizophrenia to autism. Panchagavya is a concoction of five products of the cow. It includes three direct products — dung, urine, and milk — and two derived products — yoghurt and ghee (or clarified butter). These ingredients are mixed in specified ratios and then allowed to ferment. Some references include four more ingredients: jaggery (or raw cane sugar), banana, coconut, and water. The dung and ghee

Biochemistry Reveals Athens' Ancient Toilets

How do you discover ancient toilets and sewers? By finding human poop. And how do you detect ancient human poop? Biochemistry! Scientists have used coprostanol for several decades now to detect human feces. It's similar to cholesterol, and it's produced in the human digestive system. Now a group has shown that bile acids are even more useful for detecting the specific makeup of human feces. They demonstrated how well this works by analyzing sediment from a 1400-year-old sewer in the Agora in Athens. The

Was There Toilet Paper Along the Han Dynasty's Silk Road?

Two thousand years ago, travelers on the Silk Road cleaned themselves with sticks after using the toilet. No paper, just sticks with cloth wrappers. Researchers studied these toilet sticks to finally prove some long-debated theories about travel and how diseases spread. They discovered signs of several parasites on personal hygiene sticks found at an ancient latrine at Xuanquanzhi along the east edge of the Tarim Basin. Some were species that needed wet marshy areas for parts of their life cycles, suggesting that people from

King Hezekiah Ritually Defiled a Shrine to Ba'al With a Latrine

In 2016, archaeologists at the site of Tel Lachish in Israel discovered a toilet that very likely played an important role in a religious reform in the Kingdom of Judah during the eighth century BCE King Hezekiah carried out sweeping religious changes throughout his kingdom. He abolished the local worship of traditional deities in favor of centralized worship of the one God of Israel at the Temple in Jerusalem. The toilet discovered at Tel Lachish seems to have been used to ritually defile a

Where Does An Elephant Poop? Wherever It Wants! Hannibal Crosses the Alps

Hannibal of Carthage led his army over the Alps to attack Italy during the Second Punic War, in 218-201 BC. Hannibal's forces famously included elephants, plus thousands of horses and mules. 2200 years later, their droppings trace the army's path through the mountains. The scientists talk about "clearly bioturbated deposits with fecal chemical biomarkers and microbial signatures". Informally, it's signs of a lot of poop and stomp and poop and stomp and ... Hannibal's army traveled along the Mediterranean coast of today's Spain and

In Hot Water in Roman Gaul

Government archaeologists in France discovered a miliarium, a Roman-era hot water heater, in a rural Roman farmstead near the village of Saint-Pathus. Today that village is 50 kilometers northeast of Paris in the Île-de-France region. They described their find in the article " A Roman miliarium from a private bath house in northern Gaul: from water technology to ritual offering ". [1] 1: Séverine Hurard, Luc Leconte, Aurélien Lefeuvre, and Pascal Raymond, Antiquity, 90 345 (2016): 1562-1575, doi://10.15184/aqy.2016.192 I described the Roman miliarium recently

Roman Hot-Water Heaters in Gaul

The Romans were famously enthusiastic about bathing. Their baths included rooms with water at different temperatures — the cold frigidarium, the warm tepidarium, and the hot calidarium. If your calidarium is going to be worth its name, you need some system for heating a large volume of water. A miliarium is a Roman hot-water heater. It is a metal tank, typically with lead walls and a bronze bottom, placed above a furnace. "Miliarium", variously spelled with one and two L's, commonly means a milestone

"It's nice to have space to defecate" — The winner of NASA's Space Poop Challenge

NASA solicited idea for space suits that could handle human waste over several days of continuous wear. The winners were announced on February 15, 2017. The top prize winner was Thatcher Cardon for his design that judged best out of more than 5,000 submissions. His design was MACES Perineal Access & Toileting System, or just M-PATS for short. The competition called for a system that could handle fecal, urine, and menstrual management within the crew's launch and entry suits over a period of 144

NASA's Space Poop Challenge

In November 2016, the American space agency NASA solicited ideas for space suits that could deal with human waste over several days of continuous wear. The Space Poop Challenge was publicized on the HeroX crowd-sourcing site. Inventors had one month to submit their ideas, in hopes of winning a $30,000 prize. Astronauts currently wear an absorbent diaper inside their space suit. That's fine for the 10 hours or so required for launch and landing to and from the International Space Station. However, future missions

Who Is The Toilet Guru?

I'm Bob Cromwell. A Yahoo review referred to me as "the Indiana Jones (and Ansel Adams) of latrines." I'm not a plumber, just a sometimes-traveler with a camera and curiousity. What I do is consulting, writing, and teaching on Linux networking and cybersecurity . The toilet pictures were just a prank, originally just one page in the collection of travel pages. I split the toilet picture collection off onto its own site in 2010. It's purely a self-appointed title! There is no formal sanctioning

A Sani-Flush blue border indicates a toilet, sink, shower, or other plumbing that I've used.

The Basic Questions

Did Thomas Crapper Invent the Flush Toilet?

So Who Did Invent the Flush Toilet?

Squat or Sit?
Raised Seat or Hole?

Wipe or Wash?
Toilet Paper or Water?

Bowl or Bin? Where do I put used toilet paper?

Where's the Seat?
Why toilets without seats?

What is a Bidet?

What is a Chamber Pot?

Why Do People Hoard Toilet Paper?

How Can I Install My Own Squat Toilet?

What is a Toilet Snorkel?

Can You Clean a Toilet With Fire?

Should I Incinerate my Sewage in the Basement?

What is a Pissoir? Updated!

Who is the Toilet Guru?

When Did Gender Separation of Public Toilets Begin?

Do Toilets Flush Opposite Directions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres?

The Toilet Blog Updated!

Latest Toilet Guru Press Coverage Updated!

Toilets Around The World

Belgium

Britain

Bulgaria

Canada

Chile

China

Czech Republic

Egypt

France

Germany

Greece

Greek Islands

Hong Kong

Hungary

Iceland

Italy

Japan

Latvia

Mexico

Middle East

Morocco

Netherlands

Rapa Nui

Romania

Russia

Trinidad

U.S.A.

Japanese Toilets and Sewage Treatment

Toilet Slipper Protocol

Ancient and Miscellaneous

1920s–1950s Fixtures

Peeping Toilet Ghosts

Toilet Gods and Demons

Sapporo's Sewerage Science Museum

Osaka's Sewerage Museum

Tokyo Bureau of Sewerage

Lavatories of the Shugendō Faith

Plumbing of Shōgunate Japan

The Ninja Toilet Assassination

Tokyo Toilet Project in Shinjuku NEW!

New York City Water and Sewage Treatment

NYC Water Supply and the Croton Aqueduct

NYC Sewage Treatment Plants

Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

North River Wastewater Treatment Plant

Wards Island Wastewater Treatment Plant

Toilets in Motion

Aircraft

Buses

Ships Updated!

Spacecraft

Submarines

Subways Updated!

Trains

Pullman Company NEW!

Historical Toilets

10,000–2100 BCE Neolithic Era

3500–1100 BCE Minoan

3000–2000 BCE Cycladic

2000s–1600s BCE Cycladic–Minoan

2100–1050 BCE Mycenaean Greece

2000–400s BCE Babylon and Assyria NEW!

1700 BCE – 395 CE Eleusia NEW!

1600 BCE – 395 CE Delphic Greece

1400 BCE – 328 CE Hebrew Bible

1200–700 BCE Phrygian / Hittite

900 BCE – 100 CE Delian Greece

900s BCE – 1304 CE Ephesus NEW!

800s BCE – 400s CE Korinthos NEW!

625 BCE – 600s CE Greater Greece NEW!

600s BCE – 600s CE Hierapolis NEW!

550 BCE – 300 CE Asclepieion of Kos

509–27 BCE Roman Republic

292 BCE – 1000s CE New Testament

28 BCE – 300s CE Roman Gaul

25 BCE – 285 CE Berber–Roman Volubilis

1–400 CE Roman (Mithraic) NEW!

62 CE Roman (Oplontis)

79 CE Roman (Pompeii) Updated!

122–700 CE Imperial Roman (Britannia)

305–311 Late Roman

711–1236 Umayyad & Almohad Caliphates NEW!

750–1258 Abbasid Caliphate

909–1171 Fatimid Caliphate

960s–1539 Arthurian

1000–1066 Saxon England NEW!

1014–1016 Danish Raids on England Updated!

1016–1066 Late Anglo-Saxon Britain NEW!

1031–1065 Taifa Kingdom of Izn-Rand Onda NEW!

1050s–1147 Almoravid Dynasty

1140–1518 Medieval Scotland

1185–1868 Shōgunate Japan

1238–1492 Nasrid Emirate of Granada NEW!

1309–1415 Avignon Papacy

1402–1921 Crusader

1465–1853 Imperial Ottoman

1510–1659 Saadian Dynasty Morocco

1596-1854 English Flush Origins

circa 1600 English Chamber Pots

1750–1760 Pre-Revolution France

1750–1790 American Revolution

1830–1835 Early 19th Century America

1839–1960s French vespasiennes

1848–1872 Mid-19th Century America

1854 Victorian London

1850s–1960s 19th-20th Century Texas

1880–1900 Late 19th Century America NEW!

1880–1900 Late 19th Century Scotland

1904–1912 Middle-Class Catalonian Home NEW!

1907 Barbary Coast Saloons

1910–1943 Italian Fascists

1900–1950 Early-Mid 20th Century America

1942–1945 Manhattan Project

1912–1960 Tangier International Zone

1926–1954 Mid-20th Century Japan

1947–1965 Cold War America

1957–1963 "Beat Generation" Paris

Toilet Quizzes

International Toilets

Flying Toilets

How's Your Hygiene?

Toilets of World Leaders and Geopolitical Figures

Privies, Privacy and Power

The Minoan Queen's Toilet

The Chamber Pot of Agamemnon

Roman Senate Latrine

Roman Emperor Nero's Toilet

The Latrines of Galerius

Umayyad and Almohad Caliphal Baths NEW!

Baths of the Izn-Rand Onda Kingdom NEW!

Toilets at Iceland's Original Parliament

Ēadmund Ironside, King of the English Updated!

Harold II, Last Anglo-Saxon King of England NEW!

Ninja Toilet Assassination of Uesugi Kenshin NEW!

Garde-robe of Avignon Popes

Plumbing of Shōgunate Japan

Nasrid Emirate Baths and Hospital NEW!

The Ottoman Sultan's Toilet

WCs at Sultan Ahmad al-Mansour's Saadian Tombs

Benjamin Franklin's Privy Pits

Theodore Roosevelt's Chamber Pot

Eugene V. Debs' Bathroom NEW!

Woodrow Wilson's Toilets, Tubs, and Sinks

Fascists and Laxatives

Leon Trotsky's Toilet, Sink, Tub, and Hot Water Heater

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Toilet

Winston Churchill's Chamber Pot

Adolf Hitler's Maritime Toilet

Harry Truman's Airborne Toilets

Dwight Eisenhower's Toilets

Lyndon Johnson's Chamber Pots, Outhouses, and Toilets

Robert F Kennedy's Water Fluoridation System

The Toilet Assassination of Ioan Culianu NEW!

Air Force One Toilet used By U.S. Presidents Kennedy through Clinton

U.S. Senator Larry Craig's Airport Men's Room Stall

Donald Trump's Solid Gold Toilets

Toilet Assassinations

c. 1380 BCE: King Eglon of Moab

1016 CE: Edmund Ironsides, King of the English

1018 and 1024: Umayyad Caliphs Ali ibn Hammud al-Nasir and Abd al-Rahman V NEW!

1589: King Henri III of France

1578: Uesugi Kenshin, Japanese Warlord

1991: Ioan Petru Culianu

Toilets of Arts and Letters

Shakespearean Chamber Pot

Hokusai, ukiyo-e, and Ghosts

Edgar Allan Poe's Washbasin

Vincent Van Gogh's Sink and Hydrotherapy Tub

Gustav Caillebotte's Bath Paintings NEW!

Claude Monet's Bathroom, Kitchen, & Hydraulics

Salvador Dalí's Boyhood Bathroom NEW!

William Randolph Hearst's Toilets, Sinks, Showers, Fountains, and Pools

Jim Morrison's Bidet

Tom Wolfe Cops a Urination

Hunter S. Thompson's Urinal

The Rolling Stones, Williams S. Burroughs, and other Beat Generation figures in Tangier

Williams S. Burroughs on the Limits of Sewer Commissioner Power

Sebastian Junger's Toilet

Peeing Figures in Art

Trompe l'œil Toilets

Movie Star Toilets

Toilets of Higher Education

Manhattan Project Plumbing

"Beat Hotel" in Paris

Toilets as Modern and Contemporary Art

The Dave Matthews Band Bus Incident

Lady Gaga's Toilets

Toilets of Faith

Mesopotamian Toilet Demons NEW!

Eleusian Mysteries NEW!

Delphic / Mother Goddess

Sacred Island of Delos

Greek, Jewish, & Early Christian Ephesus NEW!

Jewish & Early Christian Korinthos NEW!

Hindu Toilet Etiquette

Shintō Toilets

Zoroastrian Hygiene

Hebrew Bible Toilets

Phrygian, Jewish, & Christian Hierapolis NEW!

Cloacina, Sewer Goddess

Mithraic Mystery Plumbing NEW!

Papal Plumbing

Lavatories of the Shugendō Faith

Ucchuṣma and Zigu, Toilet Gods

Islamic Toilet Etiquette

Umayyad and Almohad Caliphal Baths NEW!

Baths of Taifa-Era Ronda NEW!

Nasrid Emirate Baths and Hospital NEW!

Almoravid Ablutions Facility

Arthurian Abbey Toilets

Abbasid Caliphate Water Storage

Fatimid Caliphate Water Storage

Greek Monastic

Medieval Scottish Ecclesiastical

Avingnon Papacy Garde-Robe

Medieval French Monastic

Buddhist Toilets and Etiquette

Hare Krishna

Japanese Toilet Gods and Demons

Medical / Health Care Plumbing

Hospital Toilets and Bedpans

Home Health Care Toilets

Ostomate-Friendly Public Toilets NEW!

Colonoscopy Preparation

Unusual Toilets

The Worst Toilet in the World

When the Bar is the Urinal

The Urikeginal

Stainless Steel Toilets

Loos With Views

Animal Toilets

Pressure-Flushing Toilets

Dual-Flush Toilets

Ice-Cooled Urinals

Toilets of Terror

Futuristic High-Tech Toilets

The Sewers of Paris

Liquid Nitrogen Plumbing

Toilet News and Irrelevancies

Toilet Multimedia

Toilet Signs

The Toilet Mailbox

Toilet Links

Grit Boxes

Roadside Shrines

Strange Foreign Toilets

Bathroom Reading

Where Is Your Favorite?

More Than Just Toilets

Press & Awards

To the Main Page

The Toilet Guru's travel suggestions

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How long have my Toilets of the World pages been around? They started in the mid 1990s as a single page on a Purdue University server. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see what that looked like as far back as January 17, 1999.

My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001, although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous Toilets of the World page until January 17, 2002. Some time soon after that I split it into categories, and the collection has grown ever since.

In December, 2010 I registered the toilet-guru.com domain and moved the pages to a dedicated server.

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