Product Description

Toilets, baths and washbasins are taken for granted in today's privileged society, but they are some of man's most indispensable facilities. How did they come about, and how did we live without them? From Roman times right up to modern-day luxury, David J. Eveleigh leads us chronologically through the story of sanitation. With the aid of new research he briefly covers the early rather primitive sanitation devices such as cesspits and urban dung heaps, and moves on to describe the advances that came with the onslaught of developing technology from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Victorian developments in water supply and the growth of piping and steam-powered pumps finally lead to the comparative comforts of today. The progression of baths and washbasins is also followed, with evidence of their practicality rising as they became fixed rather than moveable, eventually resulting in the arrival of the en-suite bathroom in the nineteenth century along with the introduction of decorative tiles and attachments. With first hand accounts and evidence from diaries and contemporary records, this book traces the history of inventions that have affected everyone throughout history, told with a lively combination of human interest and drama.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #676364 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
DAVID J. EVELEIGH is Curator of Social History at Blaise Castle Museum, Bristol. He has written a number of previous books including Old Cooking Utensils, Firegrates and Kitchen Ranges and The Victorian Farmer.

Customer Reviews

Great book
I found this book to be a well told story about the development of modern sanitation, a topic which is important to al of us. The writer's style made the reading easy and the vast amount of detail was easy to digest and quite fascinating.