The history of the toilet

Steve_175

There is more to this story than I realized.



<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/turrets-toilets-partial-history-throne-room-180951788/?no-ist">http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/turrets-toilets-partial-history-throne-room-180951788/?no-ist</a>

Harvey Ramer

Pretty cool!

Off to replace a water closet of the current century. I used to think about baseball while I was replacing one, now I can think about medieval castles!



Thanks for sharing.



Harvey 

icesailor

History of where toilet contents went to:

Over the years, I've had a lot of related articles on these subjects. Getting new computers and closed links sort of eliminate the best ones.

Here's one on London Sewers. Not the one I wish I still had. It was one by a woman engineer for her PHD dissertation.

http://www.johnhearfield.com/Drains/Sewer1.htm



Consider this. Most cities, especially in Europe were built along rivers. The cities moved UP river because the water was so fouled  by waste. Butchered animal remains were thrown into rivers to get rid of them. The butcher buildings were always located DOWN stream from the city. The wealthy lived downstream of the city. The wealthy moved and built new homes UPRIVER for the clean water.

The first proven case of water born epidemiology was in London where they showed that leaking sewers leached contaminated water through the ground and into the Thames River. Where the less fortunate got their "fresh water". They mapped the cases in London for some serious water borne disease like Cholera, and the cases were all around the river.



https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/mapping-paris/Paris_Sewers_Page.html

ChrisJ

Ew

Isn't unsafe water one of the reasons drinking alcohol became so popular?

KC_Jones

Beer

They say that is one reason beer became so popular.  It was a way to make safe liquid for drinking and it also had preservatives in it (hops) so it would keep for a while without refrigeration which they didn't have anyway.

SWEI

Fermentation

is quite sensitive to foreign critters.  The neat thing about beer and wine is that almost anything undesirable that grows alters both smell and taste in an obvious way.  So if it smells OK and tastes OK, it usually is OK.

icesailor

History:

Fermentation of grains grains and fruit was a way to keep and store crops and keeping them from spoiling. Beer goes back thousands of years, WIne as far back also. Beer used to be drunk warm and quickly before it spoiled. The Inca's made (and still do) make a beer with spit. I'll pass.

KC_Jones

All I know is....

Water tastes a whole lot better when fermented with some barley and hops....enjoying some fermented water right now.  Cheers!

icesailor

Spoilage:

I can't honestly say that I've ever cracked a bad bottle of beer. I'm still trying. I've sampled some that I didn't like as much. Too "Hoppy". But all in all, I'm still looking.

Harvey Ramer

Beer

I'm a sucker for the darker beers. I like them right around 55°F



Harvey

BobC

Skunky

When I was fresh out of the army and a little short in the cash department we used to buy Haffenreffer Private Stock (Green death), it was a cheap malt liquor that had a tendency to skunk up if improperly stored. That didn't stop us, we drank it anyway.



After buying a house I made my own beer for over a decade and got a lot of complements on it's taste. I learned that cleanliness is critical when dealing with yeast, you can get all kinds of strange tastes and odors if you don't keep everything clean.



These days i buy the mixed twelve packs of Otter Creek or something similar; I enjoy a little variety.



Bob