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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?

#381

Post by 4ad »

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?

No, it doesn't take 20 seconds, even a 2 (two!) second wipe job does a better job at drying than 30s of air. Apart from that, air driers are incredibly unsanitary, spreading stuff everywhere.

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20141121/restroom-h...

Also see this episode of mythbusters, which goes into much more depth than the synopsis on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2013_season)#Epis...

And the high-end ones, which are only marginally better, are very, very loud. Loud enough to trigger tinnitus in myself, for example.

Paper towels don't "waste" paper, they use paper (of which there's no shortage of, in the world) very efficiently. Plus in Germany and Portugal (at least) they have these reusable cloth towels that move between two spools.

If I don't have towels of any kind, I just wipe my hands on my clothes. It's not great but it sure beats the damn useless contraption.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#382

Post by Cthulhu_ »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #321
globuous wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going off of that, when I realized that an ice cube was proof of incredible engineerning and that in terms of mankind, it's brand new tech !! I "couldn't believe it". I got that the concept of freezing water was some complex thermodynamics, but never realized it implied I couldn't make an ice cube without it when it's hot outside ! I thought the French had been drinking cold champagne all these years ! (turns out the…

Before refrigeration, people would use evaporative cooling to keep things cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

And cooler cabinets, where they had blocks of ice in a compartiment at the top of a closet (of sorts).

(source: guided tour of a late-1800s castle with a fully equipped French kitchen complex. Complex because they had rooms for separate tasks.)

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#383

Post by Doxin »

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).

Just pretend you're taking a dump on the floor. You stand over the hole and squat down any which way seems comfortable and just let your droppings... drop.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#384

Post by topmonk »

Freak_NL wrote: post #364
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?

Social inertia. Toilet habits are very hard to change due to the taboo-ish nature of the topic, and the social expectation that toilets are more or less the same everywhere you go (at work or school, in restaurants, visiting friends or family, etc.). Anyone who spent a year is in a country like Japan or South Korea will have experienced that toilet paper is down-right barbaric compared to a jet of warm water appearin…

> But when you go back to a country that uses only toilet paper you either have to go out of your way (and pay a lot of money to renovate your bathroom) to find the kind of modern automated toilet seat that does add the features you've just left behind, or you just do as everyone else does.

Having gotten use to the bidet, I now bring a bottle of water with me, and wet the toilet paper before wiping. It leaves me about as clean as with a bidet.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#385

Post by BuildTheRobots »

globuous wrote: post #221
gkya wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me recall immediately the "I, pencil" article. It's stunning to remember that almost anything one gets to touch or see throughout the day is a product of almost always global collaboration, if we include a things conception with its production, and also transportation, selling, etc.

Going off of that, when I realized that an ice cube was proof of incredible engineerning and that in terms of mankind, it's brand new tech !! I "couldn't believe it". I got that the concept of freezing water was some complex thermodynamics, but never realized it implied I couldn't make an ice cube without it when it's hot outside ! I thought the French had been drinking cold champagne all these years ! (turns out the…

Ice Houses were really popular; especially in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#386

Post by wazoox »

François Rabelais did a thorough explanation on the best ways to wipe back in hist late 15th century books (don't remember which one exactly, sorry). After discussing the virtues of various sorts of leaves, hay, moss, he concludes that the best wiping material is a small, soft bird. :)

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#388

Post by neeleshs »

4ad wrote: post #381
krageon wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, it doesn't take 20 seconds, even a 2 (two!) second wipe job does a better job at drying than 30s of air. Apart from that, air driers are incredibly unsanitary, spreading stuff everywhere. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20141121/restroom-h... Also see this episode of mythbusters, which goes into much more depth than the synopsis on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2013_season)#Epis..…

Or carry a kerchief in your pocket.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#389

Post by jasonkester »

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 :-)).

The "hose" is a recent innovation. You can still find the old version occasionally, consisting of a big bucket of water and a smaller bucket for scooping.

But yeah, once you've discovered the beauty of the hose, it's hard to go back. Worse is traveling in other tropical parts of the world with bad plumbing, where the solution to the same problem is "giant garbage bag filled with used toilet paper".

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#390

Post by neeleshs »

jessriedel wrote: post #201
kragen wrote: post #24

When I moved to Argentina, it took me a while to get used to bidets. But now that I'm used to them, I never use toilet paper voluntarily. It leaves your butt still dirty! As someone said, if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean? No, not if you're from the mainstream of any developed country. You would use water, soap, and maybe more…

Honest question: Can a bidet user explain why bidets are superior to just having a nearby faucet to dampen the toilet paper, like this?: https://d193qi3ct19t6b.cloudfront.net/products/24229/regular... Having a separate system and jet of water seems like a lot more complexity with increased risk of splash. And the cleaning properties of dampened paper seem strictly better than a stream of water. Just like I wouldn't w…

Even in the USA, it is fairly trivial to attach a bidet. Being from India, I could not live without it and went on to install it in all our bathrooms. Takes less than 30 minutes to install one, and you can order one from Amazon
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