EP. 32 Toilet Paper

Toilet paper as we know it has only been around for a couple hundred years. The things used for wiping in the ancient times were things that were commonly available and biodegradable. Things like leaves, moss, coconut fibers, straw or a snow. Prehistoric humans did not have designated bathroom areas and some considered that time to be a communal time to be shared with others. That’s an interesting idea. Because nobody feels that way nowadays.  I will say that maybe the military and sports have similar ideas. In my time playing sports I have had more than one communal bathroom break. Early tribes from the Middle East would use their hands and had a process that involved a wiping hand and a cleaning hand. This sounds like exactly what you think. You had to go in knowing that your left hand had a job and your right hand had a job. We are all human and mistakes happen so there was definitely a guy who mixed those hands up. In Ancient Greece they used small pebbles or even pieces of pottery. And it was more of a scraping than a wiping. Ouch! Those pieces of pottery may have even had the names of their enemies on them. This process came from what they called ostraca (awstrussuh) which is a vote to decide if someone should be kicked out of the tribe. I’m getting survivor vibes.  This is where we get the term ostracized. They would write a person’s name on this piece of pottery. And there is evidence that they would then use that piece to scrape themselves clean. The Roman’s used a sponge on a stick. Called a xlyspongium. After you were done you dip or rinse it in a mix of salt water and vinegar and leave it for the next patron. No surprise there that bacteria spread and caused illness. People in ancient japan used what they called a poop wiping stick called an chugi. Which basically translates to small stake, stick or rod. It was said to look like a popsicle stick. I have found pictures and will be posting. They did a similar job as the Greeks with their pottery.  It really is surprising as I researched this stuff to see the amount of civilizations who scraped instead of wiping. When I first started looking into this stuff I never even thought that there would be people who scrape.  But then again I learned that there are people that wipe from the front. Let me rephrase. Men who wipe from the front. This may be deeper than we normally go on HDTH but I’ve known this for awhile and I would like to ask the people. Put it on the twitter page if you wipe from the front. Some of the first people to use paper for wiping were the Chinese. This makes sense because the Chinese invented paper. A man named Cai Lun is the guy who gets the credit for first creating paper in 105ce.  Ancient China was pumping out more than 1 million sheets of to a year. They would sometimes be made of a bamboo pulp and if you had money like that you could get it perfumed. Rural farmers in ancient China would poop outside in a hole that would then slide down to their pigs who would eat it.  I get why pork gets a bad rap now. In 1391 the emperor of China decreed that there should be specific paper made for his bathroom needs.  Europeans were not big on paper during this time because a lot of their books and printing was done on parchment. It wasn’t until the printing press was created was there an actual need for paper in the west. For almost 500 years the Groom of the stool or First Lady of the bed chamber was a position in the king of England’s castle. The first was a man named William Grimsby in 1455.  This person made sure that the king or queen had linens to wipe with and in some cases would have handled the business end of things if you get my drift. They even had paintings of their likeness commissioned.  It was a highly sought after position because the person was also privy to the private thoughts of the royalty. Wikipedia defines their job as assisting the king with excretion.