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BIBLIOGRAPHY

The progress of a society may be judged by the way in which it disposes of its human waste material, and thus by the quality of its sewerage system (Mumford 1961, chap. 8). In the ancient world, the Greeks and Romans put great emphasis upon town planning. Roman cities were famed for their sewers, drains, aqueducts, paved streets, and roads. Domestic plumbing ranged from marble bathrooms with under-floor heating and indoor toilets in upmarket villas to basic latrine provision for the Roman army, as found, for example, alongside Hadrians Wall in northern Britain (Greed 2003). Following the decline of the Roman Empire, waste disposal returned to more primitive methods. Most ordinary people used an outdoor privy, while nobles often had an indoor toilet built out from the wall of their castle, hanging over the moat. In the Christian West during the Middle Ages, indoor plumbing, or for that matter personal hygiene and privacy, were not highly esteemed marks of civilization or progress, although washing and bathing, and bathhouses, were given higher priority in the Muslim East (Bonneville 1997).

In urban areas, the emptying of chamber pots straight into the street, and the accumulation of piles of human waste, resulted in disease and an unpleasant urban environment. Night-soil men were often employed to collect excreta, which was spread on the fields as fertilizer. Although Sir John Harrington had developed an indoor flushing toilet for Queen Elizabeth I in 1596, it was not until the rise of mass industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century that domestic toilets were mass-produced in northern England. Flushing technology was improved through the efforts of inventive manufacturers such as John Shanks, George Jennings, Alexander Cummings, and Thomas Crapper in the United Kingdom (Reyburn 1969) and Thomas Maddocks, John Randall Mann, William Campbell, and Henry Demarest, among others, in the United States (Palmer 1973). Early toilet manufacturers were generally companies that had first made their name in the manufacture of china and earthenware. Such English companies as Minton, Twyford, and Doulton adapted their production processes to make porcelain toilet bowls and pans. Toilet design was based upon the sit rather than squat mode of excretion (which required nothing more than a hole in the ground). The sit approach required a specific and highly marketable consumer product, the pedestal toilet, along with all the plumbing fixtures, such as taps (faucets), cisterns, basins, and fittings that together made up the bathroom. Interestingly, urinals for men, although a common feature of public toilets, are not generally a feature of private domestic bathrooms. These artifacts were exported from Britain to the rest of the world as a sign of modernity and Western progress, and were rapidly adopted for fear of being seen as backward or dirty, in spite of the fact that the majority of the worlds population squats when eliminating waste, a position that is ergonomically more healthy and efficient.

Compartmentalization of production was marked by separate metal-manufacture companies specializing in lead piping, plumbing fixtures, and other nonporcelain components. Nowadays, international toilet companies such as Armitage Shanks, Ideal Standard, and Geberit have diversified to offer a wide range of toilet technologies and materials. Synthetic materials now predominate; piping is made of plastic and the porcelain is more likely to be polymer. Old and widely used lead piping has been condemned as a potential cause of poisoning. (Plumbing gets its name from plomb, the medieval word for lead, as plumbers were essentially lead workers.)

While in the past, mains drainage and indoor plumbing were a sign of modernity, today people want designer bathrooms, luxury fixtures, power showers, fitted kitchens, and the latest technology. There has been a restroom revolution in Asia in particular, with companies such as Toto producing complete prefabricated bathroom units for the Japanese housing market, all the components being made together. Colored polyester resins, modern plastics, and marble and granite composites feature strongly in these modern bathroom modules (Greed 2003). Likewise, modern automatic public toilets are fully integrated, prefabricated systems that often use stainless steel and pathogen-resistant polymer materials. However, user-end toilet innovation must be matched by provider-end infrastructural sewerage system provision. The functionality of domestic toilets is dependent on there being a working sewerage system to take away output. Alternatively, the output from a luxury bathroom, as is the case in some affluent areas in developing countries, might end up in a cesspool under the house for collection by traditional night-soil operatives. Alternatively, as in some parts of the Americas and Australasia, even upmarket private houses are not served by a municipal sewerage and drainage system, and depend upon their own cesspits, generators, and water tanks.

Both public and domestic toilet design is becoming increasingly technologically driven, with automatic flushes and sensor-controlled washing-and-drying facilities becoming commonplace. In parallel, environmental sustainability requirements to save water have resulted in a range of dual-flush cisterns, waterless urinals, and human-waste recycling innovations. High levels of toilet provision in every home, along with highly developed sewerage systems, are no longer necessarily seen as signs of progress and economic development. Such assumptions are now being questioned. Many parts of the world are not economically or environmentally in a position to build modern, expensive water and sewerage systems: It is not a high priority. Water is becoming an increasingly expensive and scarce resource; some see it as the new oil in terms of future geopolitical tensions. Far from being a sign of economic development, many see the emphasis upon water-based sewerage systems and flushing toilets as old fashioned, colonial, and unsustainable. Instead, new, more sustainable solutions are being developed, especially within prosperous advanced Asian countries that can afford such research. Such systems will incorporate the most modern technological and scientific advances in the fields of engineering, pathogen control, and urban governance (Chun 2002; Mara 2006).

SEE ALSO Civilization; Developing Countries; Development; Modernization; Planning; Public Health; Sanitation; Toilets; Urbanization; Water Resources

Bonneville, Franoise de. 1997. The Book of the Bath. London: Thames and Hudson.

Chun, Allen. 2002. Flushing in the Future: The Supermodern Japanese Toilet in a Changing Domestic Culture. Post Colonial Studies Journal (The Toilet Issue) 5 (2): 153170.

Greed, Clara. 2003. Inclusive Urban Design: Public Toilets. Oxford: Elsevier.

Kira, Alexander. 1976. The Bathroom. London: Penguin.

Mara, Duncan. 2006. Modern Engineering Interventions to Reduce the Transmission of Diseases Caused by Inadequate Domestic Water Supplies and Sanitation in Developing Countries. Building Services and Engineering Research and Technology 27 (2): 7584.

Mumford, Lewis. 1961. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. London: Penguin.

Palmer, Roy. 1973. The Water Closet: A New History. London: David and Charles, Newton Abbot.

Reyburn, Wallace. 1969. Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper. London: Macdonald.

Clara Greed

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