A Look Back

from the American Journal of Gastroenterology (2009; 104:552)

The Flush Toilet
Robert E. Kravetz

Disposal of human waste has been an issue since humans have inhabited the Earth. Prehistoric man relieved himself out of doors; much later, Native American and early American settlers also used the rivers, woods, and shrubs to fulfill their toilet needs in the same primitive way. There is archaeological evidence, however, of domestic communal toilets from many ancient civilizations dating back to 2500 BC.

At the height of the Roman Empire, there was a highly developed water system and one for waste management with underground sewers and indoor privies in each home. After the decline of the Empire the entire system collapsed, and by the Middle Ages in Europe, and well into the eighteenth century, waste disposal meant throwing the material out of a window or door onto the street and into the gutter.

In 1596, Sir John Harrington of England invented the first flush toilet, but the public mocked and ignored his invention. Nearly 200 years passed before, in 1775, Alexander Cummings received the first patent for a water closet. By the 1800s, the golden age of toilets had begun. Thomas Crapper is erroneously thought to have invented the toilet, but his contribution was a series of plumbing-related patents that revolutionized its operation.

The accompanying illustration shows a nineteenth-century toilet from an English catalog—a very elaborate fixture indeed!