Other Toilets I have known

1. The traditional French Squat-on-Ceramic. Nice little footmarks moulded into the ceramic so you can position your feet not to get wet. No splashback. Bit awkward I imagine for the old or disabled.

2. Whilst not concerning the "big one", only public "small ones" for men, French pissoirs were often architecturally pleasing. Has anyone ever done a photostudy?

3. The "pit latrine": widely encouraged in the developing world by the likes of the WHO and that marvellous work Where There Is No Doctor for rural healthworkers originated by David Werner. Basically an approximately 2 metre x 2 metre hole in the ground with a reinforced top with a hole over which one squats. See how to make one here.

It can be more or less sophisticated.

In Nyala, Darfur, being dry, we shared a fenced-off open-air pit with the owners of the courtyard. And it being a Muslim household, no problems with toilet paper quality - jug of water and bar of soap next to the pit. Wash with your left hand and eat with your right.

Here, where it rains, sheltered pit latrines are recommended and there have been UN/WHO projects to encourage the local population to construct them - "we'll provide the materials if you provide the labour". I have my own.

A vent is recommended and a simple wooden cover for the hole. You can design the top as you like - I have known someone install a regular European toilet bowl over a pit and then flush it with a bucket of water.

4. The "bucket-drop". I have come across these in both Darfur and N.W. China.

Basically you build a raised holed platform in the outside wall of your courtyard and you defecate into a bucket which is accessible from a "cubicle" on the outside of the wall. Then the nightsoil collectors (the worst job in the world?) come round and collect the contents of the bucket. If they don't come frequently and regularly or you have a large family , the bucket soon becomes fly-ridden overflowing mess.

However, in colder climes during winter this isn't too much of a problem.

In the college holidays of the winter of 1981-82 I toured northern China and visited the famous Buddhist decorated caves of Dunhuang in north-west Gansu province near the border with Xinjiang or Chinese Turkestan (hmm ... another story there).

The local state-run guesthouse was pretty rudimentary. Temperatures were constantly sub-zero, the bucket-drop toilet was across the courtyard. Going outside to relieve oneself in the middle of the night was torture. Looking through the hole of the bucket-drop was a metre high pyramid of offerings. Couldn't see a bucket - was there one? Ones offering froze on contact. I guess being a nightsoil collector was seasonal employment!

5. Anywhere ...

So let us finish herewith my scatological offerings and move on ...

Toilet Design and Scatology

Dr Crippen draws my attention to this very amusing post by Dr Grumble on the role of scatology (a fascination with pooh) and the design of toilets in German culture which led me here and here.

Apparently, a toilet bowl in a German residence is so designed that the pooh falls on to a flat horizontal surface so that it can be thoroughly inspected before the flush is pulled. It also has the advantage of no splashback when that "big-one" hits the water and showers your lower end with now contaminated water.


Now, as you can see from the photo below, we very carefully chose our toilet to match the period-style of our four-legged bath-tub. No practical push-button floor-level plastic tank and plastic seat for this pièce de resistance in bathroom design.



Only ...

this elegantly-designed toilet obliges me to inspect my pooh. The angle on the back downslope is such that my "big-one" doesn't directly hit water and thus avoids splashback. But the pooh, being somewhat viscous and sticky in nature, has a tendency to adhere to the ceramic back downslope. As per usual in the modern western world, one wipes one's orifice with a piece of paper that gets thrown into the bowl after the pooh.

And then one pulls the chain, pushes the button or whatever and it's all meant to get washed away ...

Only ...

It doesn't.

Here comes your saviour ... the toilet-brush!


Conveniently positioned next to the toilet, you cannot use it on first flush as it will become hopelessly mixed-up with the now sodden dirty toilet-paper with which you cleaned your orifice.

Wait for the cistern to fill up, flush again - make sure you're quick with the brush! And if your pooh is particularly adhesive, you may have to repeat the flush yet again.

At work we have, what I can only imagine, typical American lavatory installations where an explosive pooh will drop straight into the water causing serious splashback. However, one flush and it's all gone.

However, I have one complaint (apart from potential splashback) - the toilet paper is the thinnest of thinnest single-ply you can imagine! One has to tear off four sheets at one go and fold them. An anecdote from a colleague recounted how he knew someone who calculated the false economy of a thick chunky single-ply toilet roll versus a seemingly smaller multi-ply European toilet roll.

Anyway, back to our German toilet bowl design - they certainly seem to be a waste of water and demonstrate an unusual fascination with the state of one's pooh!