There still is a market for fertilizer manufactured from human waste. The Massachusetts Water Reclamation Authority sells Bay State Fertilizer which is, essentially, treated human waste. Because it has been processed it is more hygienic than raw shit but basically it’s Boston’s night soil in a bag.
Similarly, Milorganite fertilizer is Milwaukee poop. 
Christians generally kept whatever was convenient for their purposes from Leviticus, and tossed away most of the others. They did away with all these difficult regulations about purity and sin, but at the same time more than happily kept the proscriptions against homosexuality, adultery, incest etc. What is that book you recommend in a few words about?
An interesting article is the below one by a Jew about the history and reasons for bathing, although he mostly deals with hot and relaxing baths. He talks about the state in Medieval times as well.
This discussion brings to mind the story (urban legend?) that one enterprising fellow went to the local town sewage treatment plant and got a load of the local sludge to dump on his lawn as cheap fertilizer. Supposedly after the treatment it was no longer a smelly mess, just sludge. The story goes that it was really good fertilizer, but the lawn sprouted wall to wall tomato plants as the numerous seeds went through humans and waste plant and were still viable.
I recall many many moons ago seeing the movie upon which was based the British comedy series which was copied into the American series “All In The Family”. The earlier part is set during WWII and the city urban brick row houses apparently still had (brick) outhouses in the tiny back yard rather than actual toilets - assume there was some sort of service to empty them from time to time? (One joke was the Archie Bunker archetype falls into one when he’s sitting there during an air raid.)
While the current stories of hygiene problems of the middle ages may be exaggerated, remember in the days before central heating and running water, any bath especially in winter in northern Europe was a major effort; to draw and heat the water, and the risk of bathing in a very cold room - fuel cost a lot of money too.
After the dissolutions of the monasteries, I recall a radio program discussing that for a decade England’s largest export was paper, tearing apart the libraries of all the monasteries to “feed the jakes of Europe” as toilet paper.
I love Shakespeare.
Sponge baths.
I recall a Radio Lab episode that said digging trenches for defecation was started as a means of combating the hookworm problem that plagued the warmer States, since the worms could travel only so far without a host before they die.
Just to mention that the book is by Rose George, not Baker - I met her a few years ago and she told a bit about it.
:dubious: What is the risk of bathing in a very cold room?
Hypothermia.
Montreal’s largest water treatment plant, the Jean-R. Marcotte treatment plant was only completed in 1974, and “it is the largest in North America, the third largest in the world, and it deals with 50% of all water treated in the province of Quebec.” (from a McGill university article, “Down the Drain”.)
Yep. I grew up in rural NSW and until the early 1970’s we had the old outhouse, a wooden shack with a toilet seat over a bucket that was collected by someone from the local council once or twice a week.
Used to get pretty ripe in summer after a few days in the hot sun.
Bottom line - when and where human waste has been a resource for agriculture or industry no, open defecation was not and is not the norm, the stuff is collected and carted away for various uses. And a surprising number of societies, both ancient and modern, have found human and animal waste too valuable to simply waste by throwing it away.
Thank you! That answers the original question perfectly.
In Victorian London, and probably a lot of other places as well, the people who collected dog feces were called pure finders, ‘pure’ being the odd term for dog shit used at the time:
The term “Dalit” swims unbidden into view…
Anyway, the cart of time grinds ever onward, bearing the juggernaut Progress, heedless of what forms of employment get sacrificed under its mighty wheels. One can only wonder what trades will be next to be sacrificed. Maybe telemarketer.
If we’re going on to the Animal Kingdom…
The streets of every European town, including Britain and no doubt all places east of Suez, from Roman times on, were covered in horse droppings — because:
a/ that was the only transport.
b/ there were more horses than you can imagine.
c/ horses felt open defecation was the norm.
In Britain and Europe small boys, and others, would dart out with buckets * to take it for the garden — you were plumb out of luck if you had no garden; in the Far East, someone would be making a profit on each scoop; and in the Middle East they probably stared at it apathetically. Did I mention they had lots and lots of flies east of ( and including ) Suez ?
I don’t know if they did anything particular in America to clear the way.
- I was told of this by an elderly man who had done it in 1920s London as a small boy.
Edit: when say only transport, that included mules, donkeys, oxen, camels etc. The melody may alter, but the song remains the same.
Not everyone is Finnish and enjoys rolling in the snow after a nice sauna. Buildings that are poorly sealed, with crappy heating from an open fireplace are not the best environment for getting naked and wet. In the good old days, every log had to be chopped and hauled by hand; maybe rich people could afford warm rooms and warm baths, and those who lived near big forests. I imagine fuel was a premium item in cities.
Don’t forget in some settings, especially Europe and the far East, regular rains would help wash away the problem; whereas in some less precipitous locales, it would pile up.
(Horses, as nomadic wanderers without “nests” or other such lair, did not have a need for controlling their output to avoid soiling their home. As prey rather than carnivore stalkers, there was also no evolutionary need to hold it in to avoid creating a smell while stalking. As I understood it, this “nesting” is the distinction that determines what animals can be housebroken.)
I learned about this from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, The Truth. Harry King, “the King of the Golden River”, makes a fortune in this way. Here’s a link to a wiki about his character: