WEBVTT - Invention: Toilets, Part 1 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:08.039 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.240 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:14.400 time for a bonus episode. Normally on Saturday, you know 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.040 what you'd be getting as a rerun a classic episode 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:18.920 of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. But that's not what 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.800 you're getting today. Today you're getting an episode of our 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.880 other podcast, Invention. Because some of you are not subscribed 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:30.360 to Invention yet, what's going on? Well, true, So this 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.320 this is an episode of Invention, the first of two 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.879 that we did on toilets. We figured this is something 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.000 everybody can relate to. All of you use toilets of 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.479 some form or another. Even if you just go out 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:44.360 into a field and dig a hole, well, you are 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.400 creating a toilet. You're creating a little latrine pit. And 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:49.599 in this episode we get into the history of that. 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:51.479 Where did it come from? What were some of the 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:56.480 earliest advanced systems of using a toilet? Like when when 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.959 was the first time someone was was actively pooping into 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.680 running water? That's sort of thing now, So this is 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.360 gonna be, as we're saying, part one of our two 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.600 parter on toilets over on Invention. So if you listen 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.000 to this episode and you'll like it and you want 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.320 to learn more, You're you're hanging on the edge of 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.600 a cliff. You want to know where toilets go after 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:18.840 we leave off, you'll have to go over to the 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.640 Invention feed, check out part two there and subscribe. Yeah, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:24.039 so the best way to do it you can go 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.400 to invention pod dot com. That's the website for our show. 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.880 But also you can just look for Invention on any 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.440 service that you happen to use to get your podcasts. 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.960 Be at say Apple podcast sort of the I Heart 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:41.240 radio app. Uh. Look for the kind of labyrinth like 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.319 sun uh emblem that we've created to go along with 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.480 our title. That's right, gorge onto Dailian imagery. Uh, learn 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.160 about toilet's, think about pooping, think about pooping way too much, 0:01:53.360 --> 0:02:05.240 and have a wonderful weekend. Hey, welcome to Invention. My 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.840 name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.359 I got a question for you. Have you ever been 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.520 to like a festival or big public event where the 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:21.520 organizers did not get enough porta potties? Probably so probably so. Um, 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.359 it's I mean, it's it's a weird. It's a weird 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.160 equation you have to work out right because you need 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.400 to have the approximate number of porta potties for a 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.400 given event. And at the same time, like I've definitely 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.240 I've been to events where people care more for the 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.280 porta potties, like there's more of a communal effort to like, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.920 let's let's look after these porta potties. Let's even go 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.480 in there and clean the porta potties right to ensure 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.400 that things don't get too vile too fast. Like if 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.320 there's if it's a multi day event, people might be 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.360 more respectful of the fact that people will need to 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.359 continue to use these over a period of time. Then 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.480 if it's just like a it's you know, this is 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.760 going on for a few hours, let's just go total 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.679 war on these facility teas I've been to a one 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.880 time went to a beer tasting festival in North Carolina 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.160 where they did not get nearly enough porta potties, and 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.079 I remember feeling like this is the closest thing I've 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.320 ever felt to like a Mad Max type scenario in 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.639 real life. People were losing their minds, Like when when 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:21.880 you don't have a place you've been drinking beer, and 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.480 then you don't have a place where you can legally 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.640 and uh in, uh in, in a polite way, go 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.880 to the bathroom. Things start to get dire really fast. Yeah, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.640 and I'm guessing there's probably a lot of indiscriminate aiming 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.400 from male urinators at this these particular events. Yeah, there 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.040 was also a you could tell just like this all 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.040 over the place, frantic search like ants foraging about looking 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.800 for other places they could go apart from the far 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.800 too few porta potties that were swarmed by people waiting. 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.400 But you start doing some very odd math if you're 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.320 in a situation like that, or even if you're not, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:58.120 even if it's not that bad, you're just waiting in 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.560 line to use a porta potty, it least I find 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:02.480 I do. And one of the questions that I think 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:07.360 you inevitably start pondering is how much exactly do people 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.080 poop in a lifetime? Like how much do I poop 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.120 in a year? How much do does does my whole 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:17.760 household poop in you know, in twenty years? Yeah, though 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:19.960 these are not necessarily factors that are going to help 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.440 you out, for you know, weekend music festival no, no, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.000 But I mean you have to imagine that there's some 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.120 kind of rough math along those lines going in. I 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.159 guess it's less for the festival. It's probably less thinking 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.640 about the total mass of poop and more about, like, 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:36.719 I don't know how many people and how often they'll 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:38.560 need to go, because it's not like the things are 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.040 going to be filled up and overflowing, at least hopefully not. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.039 But yeah, that is the thing that you can start 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.600 wondering about, and it's a weird question once you actually 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.160 get the answer. I found an article that addresses this. 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.240 It was a article on Live Science by Mindy Weisberger 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.760 addressing exactly this question full on with an interview with 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.960 a like health p fessional who had the dirt. So 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.120 it's impossible to answer this question exactly how much you 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.240 poop in a lifetime, because of course everybody's different, there's 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.480 different average fecal mass production, there's different lifespan and all that. 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.560 But it's actually fairly easy to get some average figures. 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.719 So the article sites Kim Barrett, a professor of medicine 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.560 at You See San Diego, and Barrett says, on average, 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.160 men and women have roughly one bowel movement per day. Though, 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:27.200 if you have more than that or less than that, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.080 don't panic. There's a normal range that's more and less. 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:35.400 It's okay. But the daily average amount of feces produced 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.159 by mass by a person an adult is usually about 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.360 fourteen to seventeen ounces or about four hundred to five 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.360 hundred grams, And from their Weisberger does some simple math 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.520 quote starting with an average daily amount of about fourteen 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.240 ounces or four hundred grams, the total poop production in 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.000 a week's time would be about six pounds or two 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.920 point eight ms. In a year, a single person would 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.520 yield about three hundred and twenty pounds or a hundred 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.360 and forty i've kilograms of poop, just a little more 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.279 than an adult panda. Ways. Al Right, So when when 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.360 one here's the sort of drill sergeant cliche of like 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.520 I've I've craped bigger than you, that's probably true. If 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.200 you're looking at a like a year's worth of defecation, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.039 well that starts to call to mind this thing that 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.320 It got me thinking about it. It got me thinking 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.200 about how as people get older, often their bodies shrink. Right, 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.200 you know, after adulthood, your body can actually physically shrink. 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.200 You don't continue getting bigger and bigger as life goes on. 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:35.599 And yet there's this invisible phantom of biomass following every 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.440 person around throughout the years, and no matter what, it's 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.839 always getting larger and larger the older you get. It 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:46.160 is the phantom mountain of combined mass of all the 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.479 feces you've ever produced. Like like a big poop golem 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.680 following you around, you have an invisible phantom poop golem 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.800 that follows you everywhere and only gets bigger with age. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.880 So so this means that like if you live to 0:06:59.920 --> 0:07:03.039 the age of seventy six, Weisberger does the math, on average, 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.000 you'll produce like twenty four thousand, three hundred and twenty 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.080 pounds or eleven thousand and thirty kilograms of poop in 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.160 your lifetime. If you live to eighty one, it's more 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.920 like it's close to twenty six thousand pounds are close 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.840 to twelve thousand kilograms. Quote, So a lifetime of a 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.800 woman's poop, because the average female lifespan is about eighty 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.480 one years in the United States, UH, the average lifetime 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.960 of a woman's poop weighs as much as three adult 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.240 male hippos. But if you follow the same averages we've 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.760 mentioned a minute ago, think about those people who lived 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.640 like a hundred and twenty, you know, the super supercentenarians. Uh. 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:39.239 One of these people who lives to like a hundred 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.920 and twenty has created, by the end of their life 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.280 a phantom poop mountain, or one of these poop golems 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:49.000 of thirty eight thousand, four hundred pounds or about seventeen thousand, 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.480 four hundred and twenty kilograms. I was trying to find 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.160 an object to compare this to. It's close to the 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.240 weight of a number of lighter combat vehicles like the 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.320 M twenty four Chafee light tank, the first used by 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:04.160 the Americans in World War Two. Just imagine this. If 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.600 you live to a hundred and twenty, over the course 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.560 of your life, you can, on average, poop a tank. 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:15.200 All right, Well, uh, let's think about these poop golems. 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.640 Obviously they cannot live with us. They must live elsewhere. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.080 And that's why that's where we get to the subject 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.240 today's episode and the episode to follow this, because this 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.200 is gonna be a two parter and we think you'll 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.040 love this one. But episode number two is going to 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.680 be a real doozy. Yes, so, yeah, that's that's the 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.280 subject of our episodes. It brings us to the technology 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:39.719 of the toilet and ultimately the concept of the flush toilet. Um. So, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.880 I think in today's episode, we're gonna be focusing primarily 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.760 on sort of the history of toilet technology, what we 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.880 what we were dealing with, like the problems faced by 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.560 disposal of human waste and and toilets before the flush 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.240 toilet was invented, And then the next episode we'll meet 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.719 the power of the flush. But so, I think one 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.880 of the things to think about is that the problem 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.800 of what to do with human waste only really becomes 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.240 a huge issue once you have sedentary lifestyles and civilization, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.200 like once you get a lot of people living in 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:19.240 roughly the same place and not constantly moving right absolutely, uh, 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:20.800 you know. I was looking back at one of my 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.640 favorite books on hygiene clean A History of Personal Hygiene 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.600 Impurity by Virginia Smith, and she points out that making 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.280 sure that your poop is somewhere other than your immediate 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.439 living environment has always been just a universal human behavior. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.000 It's just part of our our species, and certainly you 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.640 see this in any number of species as well. Um, 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.560 I mean you see, like dogs would rather go poop 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.560 somewhere far away from where they live. You know, they 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.040 don't want to poop in their den right, and they're 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.840 they're even you know, we've talked about coprophagia. There even 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.839 like some ideas and science about like when a dog 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.160 ends up pooping in its house. This may come from 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.560 like an instinct to the fact that sometimes dogs will 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.360 then eat it, which seems gross to us, is actually 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.880 something to like prevent possible parasite eggs from hatching in it, 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.720 because there can be a health risk from poop staying 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.080 around in your living areas. Yeah, and if you want 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:13.600 to hear more about this Stufforable in your Mind has 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.440 an entire episode about animals eating poop. That's right. We're 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.520 not going to be focusing on eating poop today, except 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.640 in the sense the toilet eats poop if you will, Yeah, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:24.560 you can. You can look at it that way for sure. 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.760 So but you know, back when we were just nomadic creatures, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.840 we didn't have to worry about this is so much. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.480 You you poop where you had to poop, You did 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.959 whatever you needed to do to to hide the feces. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.080 But then you're going to be moving on. You're not 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.440 going to stay in that immediate area, and you're probably 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.080 there aren't that many of you anyway, like any given 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:49.280 group of human nomads. Uh, it's not going to be 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.079 the size of of a of a village or the 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.280 stuff certainly the size of a large metropolitan area. Now 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.959 that doesn't mean there are no dangerous associated with defecation 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.040 at this stage. Even you're not gonna have nearly as 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.599 much of a problem with what to do with the excrement. 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.760 You are still like when you when you go to 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.280 go to the bathroom, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable state. Absolutely. 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.800 I mean, poop itself opens up vulnerabilities. You see this 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.960 in any number of animals that have various methods for 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.959 hiding their own poops. Sometimes it's essentially self hiding, such 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.320 as the way a goat's poop will rolled away. Goats 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:30.160 often would favor hilly environment so that the poop rolls 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.040 away hides itself. Cats, on the other hand, of course, 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.640 or are known for their uh, their their skillet, bearing 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.319 their poop and thus hiding it from from larger predators 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.760 because that's the fear, right, is that your fecal matter 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.400 is h is a signal. Uh, it's an it's a 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.880 it's an odor that is letting anyone with a nose 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.480 to smell it know where you are and perhaps what 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.040 degree of healthier in as well. Yeah, if you are 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.800 a prey animal, it shows you where a predator can 0:11:57.840 --> 0:11:59.600 come get a meal. If you're a predator, it can 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.880 scare off prey animals. Uh. There's a paper that looked 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.120 into into some of this. It's a two paper called 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.080 the Control of Defecation in Humans and Evolutionary Advantage. The 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.319 question mark part of it there by Italian bowel experts G. 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:20.760 Massotti and V. Villainacci, And they did something interesting here. 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.040 They ran a human fecal sample. Uh. They were they 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.400 use both a modern and an ancient example through complex 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:33.440 gas uh chromatographic mass spectro spectrometric analysis, and they discovered 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.480 that quote, human feces are rich in volatile compounds likely 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.439 to be identified by potential predators. And so they went 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.760 on to argue that the high predation risk for ancient 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:49.640 hominids by large carnivores suggests something rather amazing about our 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:54.600 pooping powers. Quote. We hypothesize that the voluntary control of 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.800 defication by our ancestors, together with greater brain volume, the 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:02.240 rex stature, opposable things, and other changes may have contributed 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.559 to the successful march of hominids along the road of evolution. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.240 In fact, by deciding when, how and where to defecate 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.560 may have several advantages in the complex prey predator relationship 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.400 because spores are left in places undetectable by predators, or 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.559 there are no fecal tracks who sent maybe easily individualated 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.240 by prey. So they propose that choosing carefully where to 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.840 poop maybe an important part of what kind of animal 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.960 we are exactly so. But but even from an early 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:36.120 point um, as Virginia Smith points out, Neolithic people's they 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.120 made use of midden piles. So you would have an 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.240 area in which you're living, and if you need to 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.520 to poop, you're either pooping beyond the area in which 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.160 you're living, or you're taking your poop and dumping it 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.839 out there in in the midden pile. And there are 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.360 you know, a few different systems that that one can 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.600 use here, one of course, is the dry sewer system. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.280 And uh and this is this will remind probably a 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.120 lot of people of a hat box because a cat's 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.640 litter box is a dry sewer system. Uh that this 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:09.680 would have been an indoor bucket of sand, ash or 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.640 dirt that one would defecate into, and then you could 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.600 take that dirt, sand or ash outside, take it to 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.400 the mid and bile dump it out and you're done. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.000 Or you could do it in the inverse. I mean 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.800 this is actually still a common method and dry pit 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.160 latrines around the world. Like if you've got an outhouse 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.680 and it's just a pit latrine. UM, a common thing 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.080 to do to help prevent smells and and help keep 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.160 things from getting too nasty is after you do your 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.880 business in the pit, you've got a bucket of like 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.160 old coal ash or something like that, or lime or 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.400 something in the uh in the out house, and you 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.880 scatter that on top, and that helps contain smells and 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.160 so forth. Now, of course, the wet sewer system, We're 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:49.600 gonna get more into that in a bit, but that, 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.200 of course is ultimately what we have today in much 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.840 of the world where you certainly a flush toilet is 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.680 an example of this, right, and that simply derives from 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:02.360 sort of the the ingenious mechanical action of water flow. Right. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.840 If you have to if you want to say, poop 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.160 in a chamber pot or in a bucket or something 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.800 like that, you've got to physically remove it yourself from 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.280 where you are. If you are to poop into moving water, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.160 then the moving water can remove your waste for you 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.360 and you don't have to do that, right Or I 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.000 guess one could poop into a container of water that 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.080 is not moving and then you would remove that yourself. 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.800 That's also a possibility, I guess it is now the 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.280 other They are all kinds of things you can poop into, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.840 and I imagine people have tried all of them at 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:37.359 one point or another. Now, beyond this dry wet distinction, 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.280 there's another important one that Smith points out, and she 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:45.920 says that toilet culture divides sharply into wiper and washer culture. Yeah, 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.400 and this is, of course, is just how one cleans 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.520 one's bomb toilet defecation. Yeah, like toilet paper versus like 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.240 a b day or wet wipes or something like that. Yeah. Now, 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.880 most ancient culture, she points out that they were wipers, 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.480 so they would have used certainly paper if it was available. 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.960 Of course, for the longest paper was um, it was 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.720 a rarity. So you're gonna probably depend on things like grass, leaves, sticks, 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.640 corn cobs, mud balls, and of course stones I've commonly 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.160 seen sided. I'm trying to imagine this. I just see 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.520 it pop up in like articles about ancient toilets, that 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.360 people would use bits of broken pottery to clean themselves. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.560 That I see that sited. But I'm just trying to 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:27.880 picture it, and it will not picture it. But you 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.480 know it, it seems it seems a little little risky. 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.640 Well it it drives down just the ridiculousness I think 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.160 of any wiping culture, because I feel like ultimately washing 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:42.000 culture has the stronger argument. Um. And washing culture is, 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.800 of course, instead of using even paper, what have you 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.960 simply depended more or exclusively on running water or spraying 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.240 water or water poured from an apparatus. That the the 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.640 sort of lubricant power of water. It's taking the principle 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.520 of the flush toilet to your own skin, right. And 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.920 you know this is the standard in many parts of 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:06.520 the world, you know, particularly say in Islamic and Hindu cultures. Um. 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.560 I mean you'll even find this. Uh, if you've ever 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.600 traveled abroad, you may have encountered this. But I have 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.119 also I know people who like purchased a house in 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.560 the Atlanta area and they're like, I don't know why, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.400 but there's a vegetable sprayer installed next to my toilet. Well, 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.879 that is, it's a bi day sprayer. That's that's simply 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.439 a means of of washing one's bum after one has defecated, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.520 and it's a rather elegant solution. I would, in my opinion, 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:33.800 hard to argue there. I mean, yeah, water gets things 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.320 cleaner than than without water. I mean it's not a 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.000 perfect analogy, but imagine if I gave you the option 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.560 of would you rather be able to take showers or 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.720 just wipe yourself down with some paper towels to clean 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.080 your body? Absolutely, I think most of us would probably 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.120 choose the running water if it is an an option. Uh. 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.480 That being said, for many of these cultures, running water 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.560 was not an option. You know that, then that's one 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.240 of the main reasons that you're seeing the wiping method 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:04.160 is the primary method in these in among ancient peoples. Now, 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.800 for the most part, this this worked right. They were 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:13.040 able to sort of roll with very simple um sewage systems. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.200 Just simply get up and move on. Because you're nomadic 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:18.480 or if you're living in a small area, just keep 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.720 it on the outside of your your living environment. But 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.199 the thing about humans is that we inevitably did a 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.000 number of things. We overcame all of our predators. We 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.479 we conquered the natural world and innovented to agriculture, and 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.640 then we started more move and then we started building cities. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:42.000 We started building just increasingly large cramped complex um just 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:46.399 accretions of human population, which of course is one of 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.720 the reasons we have I have so many wonderful things 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.920 in our culture. But also it created a lot of problems. Yeah, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.360 of course the city comes with many wonders for good 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.000 and ill, and it just I mean, obviously, how to 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.800 deal with human waste is a major one of the ills, 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.800 right is one of the biggest problems that you immediately 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:08.000 face as soon as you decide to create crowded, sedentary civilization. 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.760 Cramming a bunch of people close together and having them 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.320 all live there and not leave, and what to do 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.239 with human waste has long been I think one of 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.920 the single most important and consequential problems in the design 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.639 of human civilizations. Like think about okay, if we go 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.320 with those numbers earlier, like the you know, fourteen ounces 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.679 or whatever. Average a day, a household of five people 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.960 is producing on average, like thirty pounds of feces a week. 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.160 An apartment building of fifty people produces like three hundred 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.440 pounds a week. Obviously, people don't want that stuff hanging around, 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.160 So where does it go? And how does it get there? 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.800 If you Okay, so if you're in a city, you 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.120 can't walk outside the outskirts of the city every time 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:51.679 you need to go to the bathroom and go to 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.199 like a midden pile, that's you know, where nobody is. 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.440 I mean, we'll come back to it. To a certain extent, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.320 you can, but that's only going to scale for so long, right, 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.320 Like residents of New York City cannot go to New 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.560 Jersey to poop. It's it's you can't leave. If you 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.520 have to leave Manhattan to poop, then I mean, why 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.680 you can't really live in Manhattan. And even then that's 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:15.600 not a good idea, especially when you've got lots of 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.960 people crowded around open defecation, even if it's in in 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.480 a place separated from you, if it's often a midden 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.120 pile or something like that, that can lead to negative 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.679 health outcomes. And we'll talk about that in a bit um. 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:28.560 But so, yeah, so you don't want all that stuff 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.760 hanging around. And it's not just because we don't esthetically 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.320 like the idea of feces piling up in the streets 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.400 and alleys around our homes because it's gross. It can 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:41.080 actually be dangerous to be exposed to untreated human waste, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.960 like untreated sewage getting into water sources is especially dangerous. 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.320 This can spread water borne diseases like diarrhea, which you 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.800 know is one of the biggest killers of children around 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.959 the world in terms of infectious disease, and then like 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.639 a cholera. I mean, cholera has been just one of 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.520 the most awful diseases in human history, and it still 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.560 kills tens of thousands of people every single year, I 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.840 mean even today. And this generally is it's the fecal 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.560 oral route of disease transmission. It's kind of gross to 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.760 talk about, but it's when sewage contaminates sources that end 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.800 up going into people's mouths, like drinking water, like soil 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.600 that you know that ends up on food um. And 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:21.800 so for this reason, like you know, I was reading 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.040 this the thing by the United Nations about the sort 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.160