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What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

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Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#371

Post by Gustomaximus »

hudibras wrote: post #355
irrational wrote: post #307

My grandfather grew up on a farm. He said they always had a bucket of corn husks in the outhouse and that was what you used. He was totally serious. If cheap toilet paper makes my bum feel raw, I can't even imagine what a corn husk would do to it.

I think you may have misheard him: farmers used to use corn cobs to wipe. https://www.farmersalmanac.com/what-did-people-use-before-to...

This article has the answer;

"In Rome, people cleaned themselves after using a public latrine with a sea sponge lashed to a stick, stored in a bucket of salt water or vinegar. It was considered polite to give the sponge a cursory rinse and a squeeze before putting it back in the bucket to get it ready for the next person."

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#372

Post by dawnerd »

rileymat2 wrote: post #301
wheresmyusern wrote: post #299

we seriously need a better solution for toilets. toilets use huge amounts of water. if you want to have a toilet in a moving vehicle, or anywhere that is not directly connected to a sewage line and a giant water treatment plant, then you are just out of luck because all the mobile toilet solutions out there suck. it amazes me that a good solution has evaded us for so long. when considering how to travel where-ever i…

I would be curious if all this plastic in your plan actually saves resoures over water.

Yeah uh, water is at least fairly easy to reuse and isn't "wasted". My old apartment recycled water on site (one of the first in north america to do it) for the toilets/landscaping. If cities would just put in non potable water lines and make it code for new buildings to use it for toilets and landscaping we'd really reduce how much drinking water is used.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#373

Post by cja »

ivanb wrote: post #361

A little though experiment. Imagine you got poop on your fingers. You take toilet paper and wipe your fingers clean. Are you now ready to continue with your business or does it feel a bit unsanitary? Then why do this to your butt?

Because very little waste collects on the outside of my body - almost all of it passes directly to the toilet bowl. And because I wear underwear and because the only function of that part of my body is shitting so it doesn't have to be as clean as my fingers.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#374

Post by rimliu »

wheresmyusern wrote: post #299

we seriously need a better solution for toilets. toilets use huge amounts of water. if you want to have a toilet in a moving vehicle, or anywhere that is not directly connected to a sewage line and a giant water treatment plant, then you are just out of luck because all the mobile toilet solutions out there suck. it amazes me that a good solution has evaded us for so long. when considering how to travel where-ever i…

Water is only a problem in some places. And I think it is less a problem globally than plastic.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#375

Post by jackaroe78 »

lbenes wrote: post #66
tlarkworthy wrote: post #8

I think a machine vision directed spray is the future. I don't fancy collecting the training data though.

LOL, "a machine vision directed spray", missing a '/s'? My toilet has a built in bidet. When the spray comes on, I move my butt to positions the stream to dead center. There's really no need for any added complexity.

Better safe than sorry

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#376

Post by moccachino »

Freak_NL wrote: post #369
lbenes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, "a machine vision directed spray", missing a '/s'? My toilet has a built in bidet. When the spray comes on, I move my butt to positions the stream to dead center. There's really no need for any added complexity.

Toilets seats with built in bidets have already been perfected in Japan and South Korea since the nineties. Anyone who suggests the need for computer vision aided complexity has never used one of these. They just work, and you learn to use them properly really fast.

They just want to gather the footage for research

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#377

Post by krageon »

4ad wrote: post #356
lsc wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, my current employers have the, uh, washlets you describe, real high grade ones with a heater and a dryer. And I use them for the wash cycle, but I've found that I still prefer to dry off using toilet paper; the air dry function, even though it's heated just takes to damn long.

Just like those stupid hand air driers at public facilities. God, how I hate those. Americans have it easy, in general paper towels are available even when the damn air thing is installed. But here in Europe, most often you only get the stupid air machine with no paper towels.

The high end ones take maybe 20s to dry your hands off. Properly drying your hands with paper towels takes at least as long and it wastes paper. What is your problem with an air dryer?

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#378

Post by onetimemanytime »

darklajid wrote: post #329
reolbox wrote: post #300

For 22 years I used toilet paper until I traveled to South East Asia where every toilet has a seperate sprinkler. After a few toilet visits I decided to give it a GO. Man, toilet paper feels strange and plain stupid now. Water is way cheaper, doesn't hurt your "behind" and I feel cleaner afterwards. Paper seems an invention to sell something we really don't need (by Mad Men :-)).

There are lots of places here in SG that have these toilets. They ... freak me out, tbh. Mostly because I have not the faintest idea how you'd use them and "So, how do you do your business" is not among the list of conversations I want to have. This whole floor (hosting six companies I think?) in a prominent office tower has one shared male restroom. Two booths. One is usable for me, the other one the scary thing. Mo…

>> Mostly because I have not the faintest idea how you'd use them

Once you get a stomach bug and you should have gone to the bathroom a minute ago you'll figure it out :) . Hint: It's like the old days, like we've been doing it for millennia, if not millions of years. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+squat+toilet

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#379

Post by Cthulhu_ »

darklajid wrote: post #367
pzs wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be a naïve question: have you tried googling the topic?

I honestly did. But the descriptions (just like the StackExchange link's replies) are utterly alien to me (squat..? How?) and I haven't found it in me to go on a video hunt (the StackExchange one links to something which supposedly is safe and helpful).

> (squat..? How?)

This is a thing for westerners; the squat position (with feet flat on the floor) is really hard to do for a lot of them, iirc mostly having to do with ankle flexibility (for me personally anyway). In countries with squat toilets the people are a lot more used to the position / motion. I guess most people could get by with doing a toe squat, but that's harder to keep balance.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#380

Post by stedaniels »

krageon wrote: post #377
4ad wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like those stupid hand air driers at public facilities. God, how I hate those. Americans have it easy, in general paper towels are available even when the damn air thing is installed. But here in Europe, most often you only get the stupid air machine with no paper towels.

The high end ones take maybe 20s to dry your hands off. Properly drying your hands with paper towels takes at least as long and it wastes paper. What is your problem with an air dryer?

You answered your own question. "The high end ones" all others take anywhere from 30 seconds to infinity. I can probably dry my hands on a paper towel in about 4 or 5 seconds max. I don't feel strongly enough about the subject to argue either way, just adding some more data points to your view on the matter.
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