The Bathroom - An Introduction
Ancient Roman latrines, Ostia. FUBAR OBFUSCO, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
A recent study of reading habits (Book Industry Study Group Report No. 6, 1978) revealed, without much pleasure, that as many readers do their reading in the bathroom as in libraries.
– Frank Muir, An Irreverent and Almost Complete Social History of the Bathroom New York: Stein and Day, 1983[1]
More than 2.6 billion people around the world don’t have access to safe sanitation. Instead of using toilets connected to sewer lines, most leave their waste on the ground or in a ditch or pit.
– “Village Bathrooms and Toilets,” in Toilets and Sanitation in the Developing World (Third World)[2]
We can thank modern plumbing for the fact that two basic, seemingly incompatible, human necessities – cleanliness and elimination – can be accommodated in one small space. The contemporary bathroom, for all its convenience, also accounts for a whopping 65 per cent of household water consumption (30 per cent for toilet flushing and 35 per cent for bathing).[3] The unlikely combination of activities seems perfectly natural to us, but for most of human history, these two functions were treated separately.
Early hominids could afford to take an ad hoc approach to “bathroom” activities, since there was lots of space and few inhabitants. It wasn’t until the arrival of permanent settlements that sanitation and water collection needed to be organized intelligently. The Neolithic villages of Orkney, Scotland boasted a tree-bark-constructed system of supply and sanitation. The Minoans used underwater clay pipes for the same purposes. The Romans advanced the technology with aqueducts (civic water supply) and cloacas (sewage system). Sewage purification was still a long way off.
In classical societies, notably Greek and Roman, bathing was a communal activity and the bathhouse was a social gathering point, as it is in many societies to this day. Modern Western bathers, by comparison, prefer the divine seclusion of the soaking tub and shower stall.
Today’s bathroom owes its existence to a few significant scientific accomplishments: first, the invention of the flush toilet by Sir John Harrington in 1596, and then Alexander Cummings’s odour-eliminating S-trap in 1775. Further technological advancements in water supply and sewage systems meant that bathing and eliminating became more common indoor activities.[4]
However, for most people even on comfortable incomes, the 20th Century bathroom remained a hospital-like space with sparse white fittings and limited hot water. And, where in the present century ever more people expect multiple bathrooms and lavatories, there was usually only one of each even in detached, four bedroom homes built up to World War Two.
– “How the Design of the Modern Bathroom Evolved,” by Jonathan Glancey[5]
As Ian Ellingham points put in the following essay, the average North American bathroom has come a long way in recent years, especially when compared to the rest of the world, as the following statistics show:
“[T]he bathroom is the most expensive room to remodel per square foot…because you’re fitting a lot into that small space.”[6]
According to an American online poll, the largest group of homes (about 1/3 of them) has one bathroom for every two residents; the second-largest group (about 1/4 of all homes) has one bathroom per person; and in third place (1/8 of all homes) are those that have more bathrooms than people, tied with those with three people per bathroom.[7]
More than 2.6 billion people around the world don’t have access to safe sanitation. Instead of using toilets connected to sewer lines, most leave their waste on the ground or in a ditch or pit.[8]
The water from one flush of a toilet is equal to what an average person uses each day in the 30 world’s poorest countries.[9]
Yet, in at least one respect, we are still in the early Stone Age:
In July 2010, the U.N. General Assembly declared access to clean water and sanitation a “human right” in a resolution that more than 40 countries including the United States [and Canada] didn’t support.[10]
NOTES:
See Also: Lawrence Wright Clean and Decent: The History of the Bathroom and the W.C. Abingdon-on-Thames,
UK: Routledge Kegan & Paul; New Ed edition (September 1984)
http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub379/item2168.html
www.mcgill.ca/waterislife/waterathome/how-much-are-we-using
www.bbc.com/culture/story/20171204-how-the-design-of-the-modern-bathroom-evolved
www.bbc.com/culture/story/20171204-how-the-design-of-the-modern-bathroom-evolved
www.housebeautiful.com/home-remodeling/renovation/a21732519/bathroom-renovation-cost
www.treehugger.com/bathroom-design/how-many-bathrooms-do-you-need-house.html
http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub379/item2168.html
Ibid.
http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub379/item2168.html