From a pit to a smart toilet: the evolution of bathroom use

The hygiene It can be the letter of introduction for a person, since good cleanliness can be an indication of a person’s self-esteem and care, and bathrooms play a very important role in this.

However, despite how urgent and necessary it is to have a bathroom at home or in any other establishment, 4.2 billion people do not have sanitation services, and 673 million people relieve themselves outdoorsaccording to the United Nations.

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Having a specific place for people to relieve themselves has been a priority that human beings have had throughout history. Obviously, The ways have changed over the years, since the resources that were available and the technological advances in each era have also influenced how people use the bathroom..

Below, we show you how bathroom use has evolved over the years, from holes in the floor, to buckets, to the arrival of the toilet.

The holes and the buckets

To get an idea of ​​what the first toilets in history were, you first have to go back to the 3500 and 3000 BC (BC)during the ancient Mesopotamiaconsidered the cradle of civilization.

The toilets of that time were simple, deep pits in the public areas of the cities. This use, with the passage of time and with the appearance of more powerful empires, It ended up being adopted in other civilizations, such as ancient Greece and the Roman Empire..

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After the fall of the Romans, this bathing culture disappeared, at least until the Middle Agesa time when the use of buckets to deposit waste was chosen. However, in the absence of drains or sewage systems, people threw their contents into the street or kept them under their beds. This ultimately became a ‘breeding ground’ for diseases such as cholera and typhoid, which were the trigger for the Black Death, which killed approximately 100 million people between Europe, Asia and Africa.

to pull the chain

Already with the arrival of the 19th century, European countries began to impose the use of toilets with a flushing chain system, leaving behind forever the throwing of waste into the streets for the sake of public health. This ended up becoming widespread in the rest of the world some time later.. The lesson had already been learned.

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The use of toilets evolved from there, as not only did the way in which people disposed of their excretions change, but the wastewater treatment plants, to put people’s waste to better use. The curved drainage pipe that is known to this day also began to be used.

Nowadays, toilet use has not only remained standardized in homes and establishments, but has been the subject of innovations focused on making bathroom use a different experience.

Perhaps the best-known case is that of high-tech toilets, widely used in Japan, which provide options such as heating and playing music or white noise during use so that the user can feel more comfortable while using the bathroom.

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