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The Infographics Show, What Did They Do Before Toilet Paper?

What Did They Do Before Toilet Paper?

You wake up and stumble to the bathroom to take care of your morning business.

You're still half asleep when you finish and grope around for the toilet paper - only

to have your hand close on an empty roll!

You're wide awake now as a moment of panic ensues.

Even as your brain scrambles for a solution to your immediate predicament, a part of you

is wondering - what on earth did people do before toilet paper?

Toilet paper is currently a billion-dollar industry in the United States alone.

The average American uses fifty-seven squares of toilet paper per day, which adds up to

a staggering fifty pounds of toilet paper per year!

But toilet paper as we know it has only been around for about a hundred-and-fifty years.

So, what did people do before toilet paper?

In his book Poop Culture, Dave Praeger, who runs the popular website PoopReport.com, says:

“The experience of needing to poop, of pooping and of having pooped is universal.”

Using the bathroom is truly a universal human experience, but our particular bathroom habits

have certainly changed throughout history, and even vary widely across the world today!

For most of human history, when it came to toilet paper people used whatever was handy

- leaves, sticks, rocks and yes, even hands!

Prehistoric tribal people didn't even have designated bathroom areas, although they would

generally do their business away from their sleeping and eating areas.

Some cultures even considered bathroom time to be a communal activity, and it was common

to socialize and chat with your friends while you did your business.

Imagine you're a prehistoric Native American tribesperson, waking up in your longhouse

surrounded by your family.

You climb out of your bed of furs on your sleeping platform and make your way past the

other longhouses and through the village.

You head to a particular area of the nearby field where you settle into a comfortable

squat and proceed to do your thing.

When you're done, you look around you for something to use to clean up.

After considering some twigs, a few leaves and some small stones, you finally settle

on a handful of dried grass to get the job done, before you head off to face the rest

of your day.

If you were a member of a different prehistoric tribe living in a more tropical climate, your

morning routine would look remarkably similar to your North American counterpart.

You wake up and find a suitable place to pop a squat, and then you use whatever is available

to clean up.

Your particular choice of clean-up materials might be a bit different though, reflecting

your tropical environment.

Instead of dried grass and stones you might consider using native leaves, coconut shards

or even seashells to get the job done.

If you woke up among the ancient peoples of the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, you'd

find that they had a totally different tactic for dealing with a lack of toilet paper - they

skipped it all together!

Waking up in your tent, you feel the call of nature.

You walk down to the river near your encampment, position yourself over the edge, and do your

thing.

When you're done, you use water from the river and your left hand to clean yourself

up - your right hand is your eating hand, so it's important not to get them mixed

up!

Finally, you'd gather your water for the day - from the same river that you just did

your business in - and carry on with your day.

If you lived in a city in China around the first century A.D., you might almost feel

right at home!

After waking up you stumble over the matong, or “horse bucket”, which was a large wooden

bucket filled with water.

You squat over the bucket and take care of business, and when you're ready to clean

up, you find a sight for sore eyes - toilet paper!

The Chinese not only invented paper, period, but they were the first to use paper as bathroom

material.

The practice was common there for centuries, but it wouldn't make its way to the rest

of the world for another sixteen-hundred years.

In the first centuries A.D., the Chinese empire was manufacturing almost a million sheets

of ancient toilet paper per year.

These two-foot by three-foot sheets were made from a bamboo pulp, and toilet paper for wealthy

and important families would often be perfumed.

The Emperor Hungwu's family alone would use fifteen-thousand of the two-foot by three-foot

paper sheets per year.

The rural Chinese farmers of the day may not have had access to the luxury of toilet paper,

but they had their own method of dealing with toilet waste.

As a rural Chinese farmer, you wake up, head outside and make your way over to the pigpen.

You settle into a squat over a hole dug in the earth nearby.

After you've relieved yourself, your … waste… travels down a tunnel and into the nearby

pigsty for the pigs to eat.

This practice was so common that the Chinese character for “pig” can be found in the

Chinese word for “toilet”.

If instead you found yourself waking up during the Nara period in ancient Japan, you'd

be facing an entirely different set of toilet practices.

As a government official living in Heijokyu Palace, the political centre of Japan during

the Nara period, you wake up and make your way to the latrine for your morning ritual.

Once done, you would use a flat stick called a chügi that looks a bit like a popsicle

stick to scrape your… area… from left to right.

If that seems weird, just imagine waking up in ancient Greece.

After waking up in your home in the city, you make your way down the street to the public

latrine.

You take a seat at one of the many holes in the stone bench and make small talk with your

neighbours while you do your business.

But, instead of using a smooth wooden stick to clean up, you use broken shards of pottery

to scrape yourself clean.

Since you're still holding a grudge against one of your neighbours, you take a moment

to inscribe his name on the shards first.

The ancient Romans had a gentler method for dealing with toilet hygiene, although their

bathroom practices still left a lot to be desired.

In the morning you make your way down the street to the public latrine to relieve yourself.

After doing your business - and catching up on local gossip, of course - you use a sea

sponge tied to string to clean yourself up.

You're careful to give the sponge a courtesy rinse for the next person before placing it

in a bucket of vinegar or salt water to be disinfected...or that was the idea anyways…

Things only got marginally better later in history.

In England during Shakespearean times, most homes had their own bathroom facilities, so

business was at least indoors, if not private or much more hygenic.

When you wake up in your London home, you lay in bed for a minute trying to decide whether

to get up and head to the latrine, which is a large room that contains a bench with a

hole in it placed over a bucket.

You also store all of your clothing in the latrine so that the strong smell of urine

can ward off disease.

You decide you're too lazy to get out of bed just yet, so do your business in the chamber

pot you keep under your bed and fall back asleep.

You don't even hear your servant come in to empty the chamber pot - but you definitely

hear the shouts from the unsuspecting pedestrians who happened to be walking by when she dumped

the contents out of the second story window!

If you were lucky enough to be a noble person living in a medieval castle around this time,

you would use the most advanced toilet technology of the day.

The latrines in the higher floors where the king and other nobles lived were large rooms

with stone benches with holes in them, but the rooms were built out over the edge of

the castle's walls, so that the waste would fall down the side of the castle and you wouldn't

have to worry about removing it yourself.

Needless to say, castle life didn't smell very pleasant!

If you were one of the pioneer farmers who settled America, morning would mean a trip

to the outhouse, a small wooden shed behind your farmhouse containing a bench over a hole

dug in the ground.

After enjoying some peace and quiet in the outhouse and taking care of your business,

you use a corn cob to clean things up.

Yepp, that's right, corn cob.

Corn was a mainstay crop for early American farmers, and they would save the husks and

cobs for bathroom time.

Once the kernels were removed, the bare cob was the perfect shape and texture to provide

a thorough cleaning.

In fact, corn cobs were so popular that many farmers preferred to use corn cobs even once

modern toilet paper was readily available.

Speaking of modern toilet paper, you can thank Sears for the toilet paper you know and love

today.

You wake up on your farm in the late nineteenth century and make your way to the outhouse

for your morning routine, the same way your family has been doing for nearly a century.

But, instead of corn husks, you use the Sears catalog to clean up.

The Sears catalog was a mail-order catalogue that was delivered for free to every American

home.

The Sears people knew what was going on with their catalogues - it even came with a hole

punched through it so you could conveniently hang it in your outhouse!

Is this the beginning of bathroom reading?

By 1857, your trip to the outhouse might have evolved beyond old catalogues.

You wake up in a stately home in a major city.

You still need to go outside to the outhouse, but your morning routine now includes the

latest toilet product - “medicated paper”, as it was called, is a hemp-based paper product

infused with aloe.

These sheets resemble tissues more than today's toilet paper, but they are a big step up from

corn cobs and catalogues!

It's not until 1890 that you'd finally find some toilet paper that resembles what

you're used to today.

The Scott brothers were the first to put toilet paper on a roll, but they were too embarrassed

to put their name on the product - or even admit that they had created it! - until many

years later.

The general public was extremely embarrassed by bodily functions, and it was considered

taboo to talk about them.

Buying toilet paper from the drug store was an embarrassing errand, and druggists would

be careful to wrap the package in paper so that no one would know what you were buying.

Toilet paper companies poured millions into marketing campaigns designed to change the

public perception of bodily functions and, by extension, toilet paper.

The advent of indoor toilets also helped push toilet paper into the mainstream - and led

to the modern trend of soft toilet paper.

You wake up in a new housing development in the early nineteen hundreds.

You are one of the first of your friends to have a new indoor flush toilet - no more morning

trips outside!

You also have the softest, gentlest toilet paper so far in history.

This isn't about your comfort, though - it's about making sure all this paper will dissolve

in the new sewer systems!

Toilet paper may be ubiquitous now, but in any parts of the world, water is actually

still the most common way to clean yourself after doing your business.

This trend may even become more popular around the world as the cost of producing toilet

paper continues to rise, and people reevaluate their use of resources like trees and water.

Bidets are already the norm in places like Japan, India and the Middle East.

In some countries, the hand-and-water method is even still popular.

This may seem strange to those of us who are used to flush toilets and toilet paper, but

studies show that these water-based practices might actually be more hygienic.

Back in the comfort and luxury of your modern-day bathroom, you thankfully find an extra roll

of toilet paper under the sink, clean yourself up and get on with your day.

But in the back of your mind, you're still thinking about what they did before toilet

paper - and thanking your lucky stars that you live in 2020!

So, what do you think about what people did before toilet paper?

What about some of the other methods used around the world?

What would you do if you couldn't use toilet paper again?

Be sure and let us know your thoughts on life before toilet paper in the comments!

If this video got you curious about how people lived in the past, you'll want to check

out this video, called What A Day In The Life of A Neanderthal Was Like.

It will make a lack of toilet paper seem like a walk in the park!

Or perhaps you'd prefer this other video instead- either way, we guarantee our content's

not a total flush, so click now!

Learn languages from TV shows, movies, news, articles and more! Try LingQ for FREE

What Did They Do Before Toilet Paper? Was hat man vor dem Toilettenpapier gemacht? Τι έκαναν πριν από το χαρτί υγείας; ¿Qué hacían antes del papel higiénico? Cosa facevano prima della carta igienica? トイレットペーパー以前は何をしていたか? O que é que se fazia antes do papel higiénico? Что делали до появления туалетной бумаги? Tuvalet Kağıdı Kullanmadan Önce Ne Yapıyorlardı? 在卫生纸出现之前人们都做些什么? 在衛生紙出現之前他們做了什麼?

You wake up and stumble to the bathroom to take care of your morning business. ||||torkelst|||||||||| ||||groggily walk||||||||||

You're still half asleep when you finish and grope around for the toilet paper - only ||||||||tasten nach Toilettenpapier|||||| ||||||||feel around||||||

to have your hand close on an empty roll!

You're wide awake now as a moment of panic ensues. |||||||||folgt |||||||||follows immediately Вы уже проснулись, и наступает момент паники.

Even as your brain scrambles for a solution to your immediate predicament, a part of you |||||||||||Zwickmühle|||| ||||struggles to find|||||||difficult situation||||

is wondering - what on earth did people do before toilet paper?

Toilet paper is currently a billion-dollar industry in the United States alone.

The average American uses fifty-seven squares of toilet paper per day, which adds up to Средний американец использует пятьдесят семь квадратиков туалетной бумаги в день, что в сумме составляет

a staggering fifty pounds of toilet paper per year! |erstaunliche||||||| |astonishing|||||||

But toilet paper as we know it has only been around for about a hundred-and-fifty years.

So, what did people do before toilet paper?

In his book Poop Culture, Dave Praeger, who runs the popular website PoopReport.com, says: |||Kot||||||||||| Dans son livre Poop Culture, Dave Praeger, qui dirige le site Web populaire PoopReport.com, dit:

“The experience of needing to poop, of pooping and of having pooped is universal.” «L'expérience d'avoir besoin de faire caca, de faire caca et d'avoir fait caca est universelle.

Using the bathroom is truly a universal human experience, but our particular bathroom habits

have certainly changed throughout history, and even vary widely across the world today! |||||||differ|||||

For most of human history, when it came to toilet paper people used whatever was handy |||||||||||||||zur Hand

- leaves, sticks, rocks and yes, even hands!

Prehistoric tribal people didn't even have designated bathroom areas, although they would

generally do their business away from their sleeping and eating areas.

Some cultures even considered bathroom time to be a communal activity, and it was common

to socialize and chat with your friends while you did your business.

Imagine you're a prehistoric Native American tribesperson, waking up in your longhouse |||||||||||communal living structure Imaginez que vous êtes une tribu amérindienne préhistorique, vous réveillant dans votre maison longue Представьте, что вы - доисторический представитель коренного американского племени, проснувшийся в своей хижине.

surrounded by your family.

You climb out of your bed of furs on your sleeping platform and make your way past the |||||||animal pelts||||||||||

other longhouses and through the village. |traditional communal dwellings|||| других домиков и через деревню.

You head to a particular area of the nearby field where you settle into a comfortable

squat and proceed to do your thing.

When you're done, you look around you for something to use to clean up.

After considering some twigs, a few leaves and some small stones, you finally settle |||small branches||||||||||

on a handful of dried grass to get the job done, before you head off to face the rest

of your day.

If you were a member of a different prehistoric tribe living in a more tropical climate, your

morning routine would look remarkably similar to your North American counterpart. ||||||||||equivalent in America

You wake up and find a suitable place to pop a squat, and then you use whatever is available Вы просыпаетесь и находите подходящее место для приседания, а затем используете все, что есть под рукой.

to clean up.

Your particular choice of clean-up materials might be a bit different though, reflecting

your tropical environment.

Instead of dried grass and stones you might consider using native leaves, coconut shards |||||||||||||pieces

or even seashells to get the job done. ||seashells|||||

If you woke up among the ancient peoples of the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, you'd

find that they had a totally different tactic for dealing with a lack of toilet paper - they

skipped it all together! Missed entirely|||

Waking up in your tent, you feel the call of nature.

You walk down to the river near your encampment, position yourself over the edge, and do your ||||||||camping site|||||||| Du gehst hinunter zum Fluss in der Nähe deines Lagers, stellst dich über den Rand und machst deine

thing.

When you're done, you use water from the river and your left hand to clean yourself

up - your right hand is your eating hand, so it's important not to get them mixed

up!

Finally, you'd gather your water for the day - from the same river that you just did

your business in - and carry on with your day.

If you lived in a city in China around the first century A.D., you might almost feel

right at home!

After waking up you stumble over the matong, or “horse bucket”, which was a large wooden Проснувшись, вы спотыкаетесь о матонг, или "ведро для лошадей", которое представляло собой большую деревянную

bucket filled with water.

You squat over the bucket and take care of business, and when you're ready to clean |crouch down|||||||||||||| Вы приседаете над ведром и убираете, а когда будете готовы к уборке.

up, you find a sight for sore eyes - toilet paper! ||||pleasant surprise||tired or irritated||| Поднявшись, вы обнаруживаете достопримечательность - туалетную бумагу!

The Chinese not only invented paper, period, but they were the first to use paper as bathroom Китайцы не только изобрели бумагу, но и первыми стали использовать ее в качестве туалетной бумаги.

material.

The practice was common there for centuries, but it wouldn't make its way to the rest

of the world for another sixteen-hundred years.

In the first centuries A.D., the Chinese empire was manufacturing almost a million sheets In de eerste eeuwen na Christus produceerde het Chinese rijk bijna een miljoen vellen

of ancient toilet paper per year.

These two-foot by three-foot sheets were made from a bamboo pulp, and toilet paper for wealthy |||||||||||bamboo|material|||||

and important families would often be perfumed. en belangrijke families werden vaak geparfumeerd.

The Emperor Hungwu's family alone would use fifteen-thousand of the two-foot by three-foot

paper sheets per year.

The rural Chinese farmers of the day may not have had access to the luxury of toilet paper,

but they had their own method of dealing with toilet waste.

As a rural Chinese farmer, you wake up, head outside and make your way over to the pigpen. |||||||||||||||||pig enclosure En tant que fermier chinois rural, vous vous réveillez, sortez et vous dirigez vers la porcherie.

You settle into a squat over a hole dug in the earth nearby. ||||crouching position||||excavated||||

After you've relieved yourself, your … waste… travels down a tunnel and into the nearby Nachdem du dich erleichtert hast, wandert dein ... Abfall ... in einen Tunnel und in die nahe gelegene

pigsty for the pigs to eat. Schweinestall für die Schweine zum Fressen. porcherie pour les porcs à manger.

This practice was so common that the Chinese character for “pig” can be found in the

Chinese word for “toilet”.

If instead you found yourself waking up during the Nara period in ancient Japan, you'd

be facing an entirely different set of toilet practices.

As a government official living in Heijokyu Palace, the political centre of Japan during

the Nara period, you wake up and make your way to the latrine for your morning ritual.

Once done, you would use a flat stick called a chügi that looks a bit like a popsicle |||||||||||||||||frozen treat

stick to scrape your… area… from left to right. ||clean or remove|||||| Stiel, um den Bereich von links nach rechts zu kratzen.

If that seems weird, just imagine waking up in ancient Greece.

After waking up in your home in the city, you make your way down the street to the public

latrine. toilet facility

You take a seat at one of the many holes in the stone bench and make small talk with your

neighbours while you do your business.

But, instead of using a smooth wooden stick to clean up, you use broken shards of pottery ||||||||||||||broken pieces||ceramic fragments

to scrape yourself clean. |Rub off dirt||

Since you're still holding a grudge against one of your neighbours, you take a moment |||||resentment|||||||||

to inscribe his name on the shards first. |write|||||broken pieces|

The ancient Romans had a gentler method for dealing with toilet hygiene, although their |||||more delicate||||||toilet cleanliness practices||

bathroom practices still left a lot to be desired.

In the morning you make your way down the street to the public latrine to relieve yourself. |||||||||||||public restroom|||

After doing your business - and catching up on local gossip, of course - you use a sea

sponge tied to string to clean yourself up. |attached||Loofah on string||||

You're careful to give the sponge a courtesy rinse for the next person before placing it |||||||polite cleaning gesture|quick clean||||||| Перед тем как положить губку на место, вы вежливо ополаскиваете ее для следующего человека.

in a bucket of vinegar or salt water to be disinfected...or that was the idea anyways…

Things only got marginally better later in history.

In England during Shakespearean times, most homes had their own bathroom facilities, so

business was at least indoors, if not private or much more hygenic.

When you wake up in your London home, you lay in bed for a minute trying to decide whether Upon waking up||||||||||||||||||

to get up and head to the latrine, which is a large room that contains a bench with a

hole in it placed over a bucket. |||positioned|||

You also store all of your clothing in the latrine so that the strong smell of urine

can ward off disease. |Prevent|| может защитить от болезней.

You decide you're too lazy to get out of bed just yet, so do your business in the chamber

pot you keep under your bed and fall back asleep.

You don't even hear your servant come in to empty the chamber pot - but you definitely |||||||||||toilet container||||

hear the shouts from the unsuspecting pedestrians who happened to be walking by when she dumped entendre les cris des piétons sans méfiance qui passaient quand elle a jeté

the contents out of the second story window!

If you were lucky enough to be a noble person living in a medieval castle around this time,

you would use the most advanced toilet technology of the day.

The latrines in the higher floors where the king and other nobles lived were large rooms

with stone benches with holes in them, but the rooms were built out over the edge of

the castle's walls, so that the waste would fall down the side of the castle and you wouldn't

have to worry about removing it yourself.

Needless to say, castle life didn't smell very pleasant!

If you were one of the pioneer farmers who settled America, morning would mean a trip

to the outhouse, a small wooden shed behind your farmhouse containing a bench over a hole ||toilet shed|||||||||||||

dug in the ground.

After enjoying some peace and quiet in the outhouse and taking care of your business,

you use a corn cob to clean things up.

Yepp, that's right, corn cob. ||||corn cylinder Да, точно, кукурузный початок.

Corn was a mainstay crop for early American farmers, and they would save the husks and |||essential staple|cultivated plant||||||||||outer coverings|use them Le maïs était une culture de base pour les premiers agriculteurs américains, et ils sauveraient les

cobs for bathroom time. corn husks||| épis pour le temps de la salle de bain.

Once the kernels were removed, the bare cob was the perfect shape and texture to provide ||corn seeds|||||||||||||

a thorough cleaning.

In fact, corn cobs were so popular that many farmers preferred to use corn cobs even once

modern toilet paper was readily available. ||||easily accessible|

Speaking of modern toilet paper, you can thank Sears for the toilet paper you know and love ||||||||department store chain||||||||

today.

You wake up on your farm in the late nineteenth century and make your way to the outhouse

for your morning routine, the same way your family has been doing for nearly a century.

But, instead of corn husks, you use the Sears catalog to clean up. ||||||||retail store catalog||||

The Sears catalog was a mail-order catalogue that was delivered for free to every American

home.

The Sears people knew what was going on with their catalogues - it even came with a hole

punched through it so you could conveniently hang it in your outhouse! made a hole|||||||suspend or attach||||

Is this the beginning of bathroom reading?

By 1857, your trip to the outhouse might have evolved beyond old catalogues.

You wake up in a stately home in a major city. |||||grand and impressive||||| Sie wachen in einem herrschaftlichen Haus in einer Großstadt auf.

You still need to go outside to the outhouse, but your morning routine now includes the

latest toilet product - “medicated paper”, as it was called, is a hemp-based paper product |||||||||||Cannabis sativa fiber||| das neueste Toilettenprodukt - "medizinisches Papier", wie es genannt wurde, ist ein Papierprodukt auf Hanfbasis

infused with aloe. combined||aloe vera

These sheets resemble tissues more than today's toilet paper, but they are a big step up from ||look like|||||||||||||| Diese Blätter ähneln eher Taschentüchern als dem heutigen Toilettenpapier, aber sie sind ein großer Fortschritt gegenüber

corn cobs and catalogues! |||lists

It's not until 1890 that you'd finally find some toilet paper that resembles what

you're used to today.

The Scott brothers were the first to put toilet paper on a roll, but they were too embarrassed

to put their name on the product - or even admit that they had created it! - until many ihren Namen auf das Produkt zu setzen - oder sogar zuzugeben, dass sie es geschaffen haben! - bis viele

years later.

The general public was extremely embarrassed by bodily functions, and it was considered

taboo to talk about them.

Buying toilet paper from the drug store was an embarrassing errand, and druggists would ||||||||||embarrassing task||pharmacists or clerks|

be careful to wrap the package in paper so that no one would know what you were buying.

Toilet paper companies poured millions into marketing campaigns designed to change the

public perception of bodily functions and, by extension, toilet paper. |||physical||||||

The advent of indoor toilets also helped push toilet paper into the mainstream - and led |arrival|||||||||||popular use||

to the modern trend of soft toilet paper.

You wake up in a new housing development in the early nineteen hundreds.

You are one of the first of your friends to have a new indoor flush toilet - no more morning

trips outside!

You also have the softest, gentlest toilet paper so far in history. Vous avez également le papier toilette le plus doux et le plus doux de l'histoire.

This isn't about your comfort, though - it's about making sure all this paper will dissolve

in the new sewer systems! |||wastewater pipes|

Toilet paper may be ubiquitous now, but in any parts of the world, water is actually ||||common everywhere|||||||||||

still the most common way to clean yourself after doing your business.

This trend may even become more popular around the world as the cost of producing toilet

paper continues to rise, and people reevaluate their use of resources like trees and water.

Bidets are already the norm in places like Japan, India and the Middle East. Toilet cleansing devices|||||||||||||

In some countries, the hand-and-water method is even still popular.

This may seem strange to those of us who are used to flush toilets and toilet paper, but

studies show that these water-based practices might actually be more hygienic.

Back in the comfort and luxury of your modern-day bathroom, you thankfully find an extra roll

of toilet paper under the sink, clean yourself up and get on with your day.

But in the back of your mind, you're still thinking about what they did before toilet

paper - and thanking your lucky stars that you live in 2020!

So, what do you think about what people did before toilet paper?

What about some of the other methods used around the world?

What would you do if you couldn't use toilet paper again?

Be sure and let us know your thoughts on life before toilet paper in the comments!

If this video got you curious about how people lived in the past, you'll want to check

out this video, called What A Day In The Life of A Neanderthal Was Like. ||||||||||||prehistoric human species||

It will make a lack of toilet paper seem like a walk in the park!

Or perhaps you'd prefer this other video instead- either way, we guarantee our content's

not a total flush, so click now! не полный слив, так что нажимайте прямо сейчас!