# Was open defecation the norm across the world before the 1800s? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 16, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156 "2016-11-16T13:19:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Waxwinged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@Waxwinged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waxwinged)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/1 "2016-11-16T13:19:17Z")
I just finished reading a rather interesting book, (“The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters.” by Rose Baker) on the subject, and was curious- historically, were latrines ever the standard in villages/cities/etc in any part of the world? Or did people generally just go to the nearby field? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/2 "2016-11-16T13:49:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Pepys Diary extract > > 20th October 1660 ‘This morning one came to me to advise with me where to make me a window into my cellar in lieu of one that Sir W Batten had stopped up; and going down my cellar to look, I put my foot into a great heap of turds, by which I find that Mr Turner’s house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth trouble me; but I will have it helped.’ > > 7 July 1663 > > Being come home, I find my stomach not well, for want of eating today my dinner as I should do, and so am become full of wind; I called late for some victuals and so to bed, leaving the men below in the cellar emptying the turds up through Mr. Turner’s own house; and so, with more content, to bed late. > [@](#): > > "When the court of Charles II spent the summer of 1665 in Oxford, the local diarist Anthony Wood observed they were “nasty and beastly, leaving at their departure their excrements in every corner, in chimneys, studies, coalhouses, [and] cellars.” " > > Anthony Wood-contemporary of Samuel Pepys and John Aubrey > [@](#): > > And the Palace of Versailles, in all its gilded and mirrored glory was a stinking cesspool. > > “Water was in great demand and caused enormous problems. The fountains used up half a million liters in three hours. In the eighteenth century they were rarely switched on, and in summer the basins emitted pestilential odors. A great reservoir at the end of the North Wing provided water for washing and for the kitchens and stables, usually in an insanitary way. A brisk washing of hands and faces was often sufficient for most courtiers, and perfumes seldom counteracted the remaining body odors. A bath was a sex aid rather than an act of personal hygiene. Before the water closet became a royal privilege, the chaise percée was the norm. There were 274 of them in Louis XIV’s time. The king and leading courtiers habitually gave audience while seated on theirs. The ambitious Parmesan diplomat Alberoni paid a compliment to the homosexual duc de Vendôme as the latter rose from his chaise percée by exclaiming ecstatically “O culo d’angelo”, as the duke wiped his backside. The gist of Newton’s findings is that Versailles stank, as courtiers and their servants urinated in corners and on staircases. Drains were inadequate, refuse and dead animals were simply thrown out in the public way, and vidangeurs had the unenviable task of cleaning out stinking cesspools” My father bought a house near Cambridge in the 1960s that had no plumbing apart from a cold water tap in the kitchen. His garden was highly fertile from a couple of centuries of chamber pots being emptied over it and dug in. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/3 "2016-11-16T14:52:32Z")
People with means shat in a bucket and tossed it into the street. Poor people just shat in the street. Fun facts: In the 1800s, sewers were what we now call “combined sewers”, that is, they carried away both human sewage and storm water, in addition to all the horse excrement in the streets. It’s much better today when we have a separation between “sanitary sewers” and “storm sewers”, because we can treat the water differently before releasing it back into creeks and rivers, but it was irrelevant back then because nobody treated waste water anyway. On the other hand, people had to wait for rain to come and “flush” the filth from the streets. Converting all those combined sewers into separate sanitary and storm sewers has been a 150 year effort that is still ongoing. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/4 "2016-11-16T15:02:47Z")
The “Great Vine” at Hampton Court is a grapevine that covers about an acre. The notes beside it say it either grows from a rich deposit from when the river flowed by there, or more likely, an old cesspit. If so, it seems some buildings made an effort to collect and dispose of material efficiently. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/5 "2016-11-16T15:29:23Z")
As recently as the 1990s, in China, I saw villages that had a central latrine, whose contents were collected and distributed as field fertilizer every morning. So, I presume that the centralization of defecation emerged along with the discovery that it had agricultural utility in a settled economy… There is a word for it in Nairobi – “Flying toilets”. There, and probably other cities, people shit into plastic bags, and throw them somewhere, anywhere, as for away as possible. The irony of the economic imperative reflected by the technological existence of plastic bags but not sanitary plumbing in the third world. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/6 "2016-11-16T15:35:54Z")
Never mind open defecation. I am just thankful we live in a world with plentiful toilet paper. Options before that were less than optimal. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/7 "2016-11-16T15:37:44Z")
In days of old when knights were bold and toilets weren’t invented They left their load beside the road and walked away contented ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/8 "2016-11-16T15:45:47Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > As recently as the 1990s, in China, I saw villages that had a central latrine, whose contents were collected and distributed as field fertilizer every morning. So, I presume that the centralization of defecation emerged along with the discovery that it had agricultural utility in a settled economy… It’s not just fecal matter that’s useful. I think people used urine for tanning leather and possibly other purposes but I’m not doing the Google search to confirm that. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/9 "2016-11-16T16:24:36Z")
You let urine sit for a bit and age, then it’s useful for degreasing/cleaning and has some bleaching effect well as softening hides during the tanning process. Allowed to age, the urea in urine turns into ammonia, which is still used for cleaning purposes today. It was also used while dying fabric, and for awhile a component of urine was extracted for gunpowder manufacture. So piss used to be an important raw material. Supposedly, in ancient Rome textile and tanning operations used to provide pots for the public to piss in as a means of obtaining the raw material. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/10 "2016-11-16T16:58:51Z")
Thus “not having a pot to piss in” to designate the poorest of the poor. You couldn’t even afford the means to sell your own urine. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/11 "2016-11-16T17:09:27Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It’s not just fecal matter that’s useful. I think people used urine for tanning leather and possibly other purposes but I’m not doing the Google search to confirm that. Yes, urine was very useful for tanning (as was dog muck. Which is a polite way to say “shit”). Alchemists boiled urine for its phosphorus, too ; and it was also used in the fabrication of saltpeter for gunpowder. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/12 "2016-11-16T17:11:45Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > People with means shat in a bucket and tossed it into the street. Poor people just shat in the street. > > Fun facts: In the 1800s, sewers were what we now call “combined sewers”, that is, they carried away both human sewage and storm water, in addition to all the horse excrement in the streets. It’s much better today when we have a separation between “sanitary sewers” and “storm sewers”, because we can treat the water differently before releasing it back into creeks and rivers, but it was irrelevant back then because nobody treated waste water anyway. On the other hand, people had to wait for rain to come and “flush” the filth from the streets. Converting all those combined sewers into separate sanitary and storm sewers has been a 150 year effort that is still ongoing. It is worth noting that the same kind of people who currently resist government medicare made every attempt to prevent the installation of municipal sewage. I hve tried in vain to find a citation for this. My source was from an exhibit a number of years ago at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal where it was mentioned in one of the legends. IIRC, the landlords in Baltimore were especially resistant since their real estate taxes would go up to mosly benefit their tenants. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/13 "2016-11-16T17:12:19Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So piss used to be an important raw material. Supposedly, in ancient Rome textile and tanning operations used to provide pots for the public to piss in as a means of obtaining the raw material. That also went on in the modern era and Victorian England. Piss used to be a valuable resource. Heartbreaking, how these days it seems we just piss it all away… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/14 "2016-11-16T17:21:48Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > In days of old when knights were bold and toilets weren’t invented > They left their load beside the road and walked away contented In days of old when knights were bold and paper wasn’t invented They wiped their ass with leaves of grass that left them nicely scented 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/15 "2016-11-16T17:27:10Z")
“Night soil” was valuable as fertilizer. You wanted to make it collectible. That doesn’t mean you wandered in from the field, necessarily, but random droppings did nobody any good. Most cultures had an organized way of collecting and moving it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/16 "2016-11-16T17:32:05Z")
The Rohm and Haas Company (now a Dow subsidiary) was started by Dr. Otto Rohm, a recent arrival from Germany, and Mr. Otto Haas, a succesful merchant, with a product intended to replace canine byproducts in the tanning industry. According to company legends, convincing a friend of Mr. Haas’ to try the new product wasn’t easy, but success went beyond expectations. The product (two of whose grandchild recipes were still made in the factory where I worked for two years in the early 2000s) performed satisfactorily; while it reeked by modern standards, it smelled a lot less bad than the kennels and didn’t bite. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/17 "2016-11-16T17:37:59Z")
Human waste became important in the manufacture of gunpowder in the 1800s. Composting of waste could produce a nitrate rich mixture in less than year used to produce potassium nitrate. People may have liked the concept of having the crap hauled away after there was a practical motivation to start doing so. More likely there wasn’t a practical alternative until the industrial revolution allowed the creation of a sewage infrastructure. ---
**Author:** ![Waxwinged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@Waxwinged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waxwinged)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/18 "2016-11-16T18:22:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > “Night soil” was valuable as fertilizer. You wanted to make it collectible. That doesn’t mean you wandered in from the field, necessarily, but random droppings did nobody any good. Most cultures had an organized way of collecting and moving it. Cite, please? (China is the only country I’ve ever heard of, doing that on any organized level). ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/19 "2016-11-16T18:40:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Human waste became important in the manufacture of gunpowder in the 1800s. This makes think of something else that sounds strange to modern ears: Sweden made the earth in cowsheds the king’s property. Not human waste, but related enough for me to mention. I originally read it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3oz8ju/with_its_comparable_range_and_much_higher_rate_of/cw1uy9u/) and the followup “poopy dirt” sounded silly enough that I remember it. [This says](https://books.google.com/books?id=PbjDAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT123&lpg=PT123&dq=sweden+cowsheds+king+nitrates&source=bl&ots=LkdEDPjmrh&sig=9ePl2oWW6LLr7J-XwKf32Jl0IQM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2vNfm9a3QAhWJ7yYKHYP8CzUQ6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=sweden%20cowsheds%20king%20nitrates&f=false) [Gustav I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_I_of_Sweden) signed that into law. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156/20 "2016-11-16T18:46:20Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > As recently as the 1990s, in China, I saw villages that had a central latrine, whose contents were collected and distributed as field fertilizer every morning. So, I presume that the centralization of defecation emerged along with the discovery that it had agricultural utility in a settled economy… Yes, we have a name for that: “dysentery” (or Cholera). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-open-defecation-the-norm-across-the-world-before-the-1800s/772156.md?page=2)