Toilet seat cover
A toilet seat cover or toilet sheet is a disposable piece of paper shaped like the toilet seat itself that can be placed on the seat by its user. Its purpose is to protect the toilet's user from germs that may be resting on the seat by creating a protective barrier; the first known patented model of the toilet seat cover dispenser dates back to 1942 and was invented by J. C. Thomasa; the photo of the "Germ Free Toilet Seat Covers Dispenser" is one of the original Thomasa Seat Cover Dispensers and is on display at the DFW Elite Museum of Haltom City, Texas. Invented and patented by: J. C. Thomasa. Seat cover dispenser Oct. 27, 1942. Seat cover package June 1, 1943. Confusingly, the term is sometimes used for decorative covers for the toilet seat, or the toilet seat lid, if present; these covers do not serve a sanitary purpose, may pose difficulties with cleaning and sanitization if they are made of porous materials or are unsuitably shaped. The descriptive qualifier "disposable" is added to clarify the intended use of some toilet seat covers.
Toilet seat covers are held in a dispenser, allowing the users to access one cover at a time, without making unnecessary contact with additional toilet seat covers. While toilet seat covers give public toilet users a sense of security, studies have shown they do not protect a toilet user from disease. For example, if a toilet user is negligent enough to place a toilet-seat cover while the seat is still wet with liquid waste the fluids can soak through the cover and make contact with the user. There has been much debate among those who use toilet covers, regarding the orientation of said toilet seat cover; the proper way to place a cover on a toilet seat is to place the side with the flap toward the front of the toilet, with the flap going in the toilet to prevent "splashing" forward. Most public toilet seats are "U". In 2009, legislators in Maine rejected legislation that would have required toilet-seat covers be placed in all restrooms; the bill was referred to the Committee on Health and Human Services, but filed without further action being taken to enact the law.
In 2007, businesswoman Jacquie Edwards of Newtonmore developed. Media related to Disposable toilet seat covers at Wikimedia Commons
Taboo
In any given society, a taboo is an implicit prohibition on something based on a cultural sense that it is excessively repulsive or too sacred for ordinary people. Such prohibitions are present in all societies. On a comparative basis taboos, for example related to food items, seem to make no sense at all as what may be declared unfit for one group by custom or religion may be acceptable to another. Whether scientifically correct or not, taboos are meant to protect the human individual, but there are numerous other reasons for their existence. An ecological or medical background is apparent in many, including some that are seen as religious or spiritual in origin. Taboos can help use a resource more efficiently, but when applied to only a subsection of the community they can serve to suppress a subsection of the community. A taboo acknowledged by a particular group or tribe as part of their ways, aids in the cohesion of the group, helps that particular group to stand out and maintain its identity in the face of others and therefore creates a feeling of "belonging".
The meaning of the word "taboo" has been somewhat expanded in the social sciences to strong prohibitions relating to any area of human activity or custom, sacred or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs, or cultural norms. "Breaking a taboo" is considered objectionable by society in general, not a subset of a culture. The term "taboo" comes from the Tongan tapu or Fijian tabu, related among others to the Maori tapu and Hawaiian kapu, its English use dates to 1777 when the British explorer James Cook visited Tonga, referred to the Tongans' use of the term "taboo" for "any thing is forbidden to be eaten, or made use of". He wrote: Not one of them would sit down, or eat a bit of any thing.... On expressing my surprise at this, they were all taboo; the term was translated to him as "consecrated, forbidden, unclean or cursed." Tabu itself has been derived from alleged Tongan morphemes ta and bu, but this may be a folk etymology, tapu is treated as a unitary, non-compound word inherited from Proto-Polynesian *tapu, in turn inherited from Proto-Oceanic *tabu, with the reconstructed meaning "sacred, forbidden."
In its current use on Tonga, the word tapu means "sacred" or "holy" in the sense of being restricted or protected by custom or law. On the main island, the word is appended to the end of "Tonga" as Tongatapu, here meaning "Sacred South" rather than "Forbidden South". Sigmund Freud speculated that incest and patricide were the only two universal taboos and formed the basis of civilization. However, although cannibalism, in-group murder, incest are taboo in the majority of societies, exceptions can be found, such as marriages between brothers and sisters in Roman Egypt. Modern Western societies, however, do not condone such relationships; these familial sexual activities are criminalised if all parties are consenting adults. Through an analysis of the language surrounding these laws, it can be seen how the policy makers, society as a whole, find these acts to be immoral. Common taboos involve restrictions or ritual regulation of hunting. In Madagascar, a strong code of taboos, known as fady change and are formed from new experiences.
Each region, village or tribe may have its own fady. The word "taboo" gained popularity at times, with some scholars looking for ways to apply it where other English words had been applied. For example, J. M. Powis Smith, in his book The American Bible, used "taboo" in relation to Israel's Tabernacle and ceremonial laws, including Exodus 30:36, Exodus 29:37. Albert Schweitzer wrote a chapter about taboos of the people of Gabon; as an example, it was considered a misfortune for twins to be born, they would be subject to many rules not incumbent on other people. Communist and materialist theorists have argued that taboos can be used to reveal the histories of societies when other records are lacking. Marvin Harris endeavored to explain taboos as a consequence of ecologic and economic conditions; some argue that contemporary Western multicultural societies have taboos against tribalisms and prejudices. Changing social customs and standards create new taboos, such as bans on slavery. Incest itself has been pulled both ways, with some seeking to normalize consensual adult relationships regardless of the degree of kinship and others expanding the degrees of prohibited contact Although the term taboo implies negative connotations, it is sometimes associated with enticing propositions in proverbs such as forbidden fruit is the sweetest.
In medicine, professionals who practice in ethical and moral grey areas, or fields subject to social stigma such as late termination of pregnancy, may refrain from public d
Mozart and scatology
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart displayed scatological humour in his letters and a few recreational compositions. This material has long been a puzzle for Mozart scholarship. One view held by scholars deals with the scatology by seeking an understanding of the role of it in Mozart's family, his society and his times, while another view holds that such humour was the result of an "impressive list" of psychiatric conditions from which Mozart is claimed to have suffered. A letter of 5 November 1777 to Mozart's cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart is an example of Mozart's use of scatology; the German original is in rhymed verse. Mozart's canon "Leck mich im Arsch" K. 231 includes the lyrics: Leck mich im A g'schwindi, g'schwindi! This would be translated into English as "lick me in the arse/ass quickly!". "Leck mich im Arsch" is a standard vulgarism in German. The closest English counterpart is "Kiss my arse/ass". David Schroeder writes: The passage of time has created an unbridgeable gulf between ourselves and Mozart's time, forcing us to misread his scatological letters more drastically than his other letters.
These letters embarrass us, we have tried to suppress them, trivialize them, or explain them out of the epistolary canon with pathological excuses. For example, when Margaret Thatcher was apprised of Mozart's scatology during a visit to the theatre to see Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, director Peter Hall relates: She was not pleased. In her best headmistress style, she gave me a severe wigging for putting on a play that depicted Mozart as a scatological imp with a love of four-letter words, it was inconceivable, she said, that a man who wrote such exquisite and elegant music could be so foul-mouthed. I said that Mozart's letters proved he was just that: he had an extraordinarily infantile sense of humour... "I don't think you heard what I said", replied the Prime Minister. "He couldn't have been like that". I offered a copy of Mozart's letters to Number Ten the next day, but it was useless: the Prime Minister said I was wrong, so wrong I was. Benjamin Simkin, an endocrinologist, estimates that 39 of Mozart's letters include scatological passages.
All of these are directed to Mozart's own family his father Leopold, his mother Anna Maria, his sister Nannerl, his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart. According to Simkin, Anna Maria and Nannerl included scatological humor in their own letters. Thus, Anna Maria wrote to her husband: Even the straitlaced Leopold used a scatological expression in one letter. Several of Mozart's scatological letters were written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart. In these letters, written after Mozart had spent a pleasant two weeks with his cousin in her native Augsburg, the scatology is combined with word play and sexual references. Robert Spaethling's rendered translation of part of a letter Mozart sent from Mannheim November 5, 1777: Deares cozz buzz! I have received reprieved your esteemed writing biting, I have noted doted thy my uncle garfuncle, my aunt slant, you too, are all well mell. We, too thank god, are in good fettle kettle... You write further, indeed you let it all out, you expose yourself, you let yourself be heard, you give me notice, you declare yourself, you indicate to me, you bring me the news, you announce unto me, you state in broad daylight, you demand, you desire, you wish, you want, you like, you command that I, should could send you my Portrait.
Eh bien, I shall mail fail it for sure. Oui, by the love of my skin, I shit on your nose, so it runs down your chin... One of the letters Mozart wrote to his father while visiting Augsburg reports an encounter Mozart and his cousin had with a priest named Father Emilian: an arrogant ass and a simple-minded little wit of his profession... when he was a little drunk, which happened soon, he started on about music. He sang a canon, said: I have never in my life heard anything more beautiful... He started. I took the third voice, but I slipped in an different text:'P E: o du schwanz, leck mich im arsch'. Sotto voce, to my cousin. We laughed together for another half hour. Mozart's scatological music was most recreational and shared among a closed group of inebriated friends. All of it takes the form of canons, in which each voice enters with the same words and music following a delay after the previous voice. Musicologist David J. Buch writes: It may seem strange that Mozart made fair copies, entered these items into his personal works catalogue and allowed them to be copied.
The reason he favored these small and crude pieces in ways similar to his more serious and important works remains a mystery. In 1798, Constanze sent her late husband's Bäsle letters to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, who at the time were gathering material in hopes of preparing a Mozart biography. In the accompanying letter she wrote "Although in dubious taste, the letters to his cousin are full of wit and deserve mentioning, although they cannot of course be published in their entirety." Schroeder suggests that in the 18th century scatological humour was far more public and "mainstream". The German-language popular theater of Mozart's time was influenced by the Italian commedia dell'arte and emphasized the stock character of Hanswurst, a coarse and robust character who would entertain his audience by pretending to eat large and unlikely objects
Head (watercraft)
The head is a ship's toilet. The name derives from sailing ships in which the toilet area for the regular sailors was placed at the head or bow of the ship. In sailing ships, the toilet was placed in the bow somewhat above the water line with vents or slots cut near the floor level allowing normal wave action to wash out the facility. Only the captain had a private toilet near his quarters, at the stern of the ship in the quarter gallery. In many modern boats, the heads look similar to seated flush toilets but use a system of valves and pumps that brings sea water into the toilet and pumps the waste out through the hull to a drain. In small boats the pump is hand operated; the pump on a marine toilet operates in a "dry" mode. The cleaning mechanism is blocked if too much toilet paper or other fibrous material is put down the pan. Submarine heads face the problem that at greater depths higher water pressure makes it harder to pump the waste out through the hull; as a result, early systems could be complicated, with the head fitted to the US Navy S class submarine being described as taking an engineer to operate.
Making a mistake resulted in waste or seawater being forcibly expelled back into the hull of the submarine. This caused the loss of German submarine U-1206; the toilet on the World War I British E class submarine was considered so poor by the captain of HMS E35 that he preferred the crew to wait to relieve themselves until the submarine surfaced at night. As a result, many submarines only used the heads as an extra storage space for provisions. Aboard sailing ships and during the era when all hands aboard a vessel were men, the heads received most of their use for defecation.
Defecation
Defecation is the final act of digestion, by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid, or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the anus. Humans expel feces with a frequency varying from a few times daily to a few times weekly. Waves of muscular contraction in the walls of the colon move fecal matter through the digestive tract towards the rectum. Undigested food may be expelled this way, in a process called egestion. Open defecation, the practice of defecating outside without using a toilet of any kind, is still widespread in some developing countries, for example in India; the rectum ampulla temporarily stores fecal waste. As the waste fills the rectum and expands the rectal walls, nervous system stretch receptors in the rectal walls stimulate the desire to defecate; this urge to defecate arises from the reflex contraction of rectal muscles, relaxation of the internal anal sphincter, an initial contraction of the skeletal muscle of the external anal sphincter. If the urge is not acted upon, the material in the rectum is returned to the colon by reverse peristalsis, where more water is absorbed and the faeces is stored until the next mass peristaltic movement of the transverse and descending colon.
If defecation is delayed for a prolonged period the fecal matter may harden, resulting in constipation. If defecation occurs too fast, before excess liquid is absorbed, diarrhea may occur; when the rectum is full, an increase in intra-rectal pressure forces apart the walls of the anal canal, allowing the fecal matter to enter the canal. The rectum shortens as material is forced into the anal canal and peristaltic waves push the feces out of the rectum; the internal and external anal sphincters along with the puborectalis muscle allow the feces to be passed by muscles pulling the anus up over the exiting feces. Defecation is assisted by taking a deep breath and trying to expel this air against a closed glottis; this contraction of expiratory chest muscles, abdominal wall muscles, pelvic diaphragm exerts pressure on the digestive tract. Ventilation at this point temporarily ceases as the lungs push the chest diaphragm down to exert the pressure. Thoracic blood pressure rises and as a reflex response the amount of blood pumped by the heart decreases.
Death has been known to occur in cases where defecation causes the blood pressure to rise enough to cause the rupture of an aneurysm or to dislodge blood clots. In releasing the Valsalva maneuver blood pressure falls. During defecation, the external sphincter muscles relax; the anal and urethral sphincter muscles are linked. Experiments by Harrison Weed at the Ohio State University Medical Center have shown they can only be contracted together, not individually, that both show relaxation during urination; this explains why defecation is accompanied by urination. Defecation may be voluntary. Young children learn voluntary control through the process of toilet training. Once trained, loss of control, called fecal incontinence, may be caused by physical injury, nerve injury, prior surgeries, diarrhea, loss of storage capacity in the rectum, intense fright, inflammatory bowel disease, psychological or neurological factors, childbirth, or death; the positions and modalities of defecation are culture-dependent.
Squat toilets are used by the vast majority of the world, including most of Africa and the Middle East. The use of sit-down toilets in the Western world is a recent development, beginning in the 19th century with the advent of indoor plumbing. Attempting forced expiration of breath against a closed airway is sometimes practiced to induce defecation while on a toilet. Cardiac arrest and other cardiovascular complications can in rare cases occur due to attempting to defecate using the valsalva maneuver. Valsalva retinopathy is another pathological syndrome associated with the Valsalva maneuver; the anus and buttocks may be cleansed after defecation with toilet paper, similar paper products, or other absorbent material. In many cultures, such as Hindu and Muslim, water is used for anal cleansing after defecation, either in addition to using toilet paper or exclusively; when water is used for anal cleansing after defecation, toilet paper may be used for drying the area afterwards. Some peoples have culturally significant stories.
For example: In an Alune and Wemale legend from the island of Seram, Maluku Province, the mythical girl Hainuwele defecates valuable objects. One of the traditions of Catalonia relates to the caganer, a figurine depicting the act of defecation which appears in nativity scenes in Catalonia and neighbouring areas with Catalan culture; the exact origin of the caganer is lost, but the tradition has existed since at least the 18th century. Eric P. Widmaier. Vanders' Human Physiology: The Mechanisms of Body Function. Chapter 15. 10th ed. McGraw Hill. ISBN 9780071116770
Hudo (Scouting)
A hudo is a temporary pit toilet in a camp, covered with a tarpaulin, not a permanent outhouse. The name is in common use in Dutch and Belgian Scouting, has international usage; the word hudo is derived from the Urdu word howdah, the covered carriage on elephants. The word is attributed to Robert Baden-Powell, who introduced it into Scouting jargon, together with other words such as jamboree and oubaas. Other popular etymological explanations include the acronym of houd uw darmen open, the contraction of hurkdoos; the validity of these explanations is questioned. Scouting portal Scouting Nederland 3rd World Scout Jamboree
Toilet paper
Toilet paper, sometimes called toilet tissue in Britain, is a tissue paper product people use to clean the anus and surrounding area of fecal material after defecation and to clean the perineal area of urine after urination and other bodily fluid releases. It acts as a layer of protection for the hands during these processes, it is supplied as a long strip of perforated paper wrapped around a paperboard core for storage in a dispenser near a toilet. Most modern toilet paper in the developed world is designed to decompose in septic tanks, whereas some other bathroom and facial tissues are not. Toilet paper comes in various numbers of plies, from one- to six-ply, with more back-to-back plies providing greater strength and absorbency; the use of paper for hygiene has been recorded in China in the 6th century AD, with manufactured toilet paper being mass-produced in the 14th century. Modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 19th century, with a patent for roll-based dispensers being made in 1883.
Although paper had been known as a wrapping and padding material in China since the 2nd century BC, the first documented use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China. In 589 AD the scholar-official Yan Zhitui wrote about the use of toilet paper: Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes. During the Tang dynasty, an Arab traveller to China in the year 851 AD remarked:...they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities. During the early 14th century, it was recorded that in what is now Zhejiang province alone, ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper were manufactured annually. During the Ming dynasty, it was recorded in 1393 that an annual supply of 720,000 sheets of toilet paper was produced for the general use of the imperial court at the capital of Nanjing. From the records of the Imperial Bureau of Supplies of that same year, it was recorded that for the Hongwu Emperor's imperial family alone, there were 15,000 sheets of special soft-fabric toilet paper made, each sheet of toilet paper was perfumed.
Elsewhere, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp, while less wealthy people used their hand when defecating into rivers, or cleaned themselves with various materials such as rags, wood shavings, grass, stones, moss, snow, plant husks, fruit skins, seashells, or corncobs, depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs. In Ancient Rome, a sponge on a stick was used, after use, placed back in a pail of vinegar. Several talmudic sources indicating ancient Jewish practice refer to the use of small pebbles carried in a special bag, to the use of dry grass and of the smooth edges of broken pottery jugs; these are all cited in the classic Biblical and Talmudic Medicine by the German physician Julius Preuss. The 16th-century French satirical writer François Rabelais, in Chapter XIII of Book 1 of his novel sequence Gargantua and Pantagruel, has his character Gargantua investigate a great number of ways of cleansing oneself after defecating. Gargantua dismisses the use of paper as ineffective, rhyming that: "Who his foul tail with paper wipes, Shall at his ballocks leave some chips.".
He concludes that "the neck of a goose, well downed" provides an optimum cleansing medium. The rise of publishing by the eighteenth century led to the use of newspapers and cheap editions of popular books for cleansing. Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son in 1747, told of a man who purchased a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina. In many parts of the world where toilet paper or the necessary plumbing for disposal may be unavailable or unaffordable, toilet paper is not used. In many parts of the world people consider using water a much cleaner and more sanitary practice than using paper. Cleansing is performed with other methods or materials, such as water, for example using a bidet, a lota, sand, corn cobs, animal furs, sticks or hands. Joseph Gayetty is credited with being the inventor of modern commercially available toilet paper in the United States.
Gayetty's paper, first introduced in 1857, was available as late as the 1920s. Gayetty's Medicated Paper was sold in packages of flat sheets, watermarked with the inventor's name. Original advertisements for the product used the tagline "The greatest necessity of the age! Gayetty's medicated paper for the water-closet." Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, obtained the earliest United States patents for toilet paper and dispensers, the types of which were in common use in that country, in 1883. The manufacturing of this product had a long period of refinement, considering that as late as the 1930s, a selling point of the Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was "splinter free". Moist toilet paper, called wet wipes, was first introduced in the United Kingdom by Andrex in the 1990s, it has been promoted as being a better method of cleaning than dry toilet paper after defecation, may be useful for women during menstruation. It was promoted as a flushable product but it has been implicated in the creation of fatbergs.
