Be grateful you have toiletpaper
Before The Toilet Paper

You may not believe this, but it was once common practice in rural America to leave a corncob hanging from a string in the outhouse for purposes of personal hygiene. The string, I gather, was to permit the cob to be reused. For those who were punctilious in these matters, or else blessed with an abundance of corncobs, a box of disposable cobs might be provided instead. In coastal regions, the cob might be replaced by a mussel shell.

For those who had access to it, paper from discarded books or newspapers was often preferred to either of the foregoing. The meteoric growth of the Sears Roebuck company, for instance, is thought to be partly attributable to the protean nature of its catalogs, which, historians tells us, might serve a family of regular habits for an entire season. As with the cob, the catalog would be hung in the outhouse on a string and pages torn off as needed. It is said the use of coated stock, which was nonabsorbent, was a source of great consternation to farm families when Sears began printing color pictures in the catalog earlier in this century.

English lords, in attempting to teach their sons to be cultivated gentlemen, often advised purchasing an inexpensive volume of verse for use in the loo. The idea, of course, was that while you were sitting there in a contemplative state you would be able to read a few stanzas, subsequent to which the paper could be put to other ends, so to speak.


-reply by Ravynmoon835

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They must have used leaves, I mean who on this earth would want to use their hands to clean up their own business? Animals don't even do that. They poop and leave. And I don't they had enough animal hide or cloth back in those days.

I think they used leaves until they thought that using leaves started getting nasty. I wonder if they ever come across poison ivy. xD

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i thought they used there hands, cuz there was this one story about it but i forgot, i think your left hand is your wiping hand.... anyway, it was disgusting no matter what they used, back before toliet paper things were not as hygenic as today anyway.

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Haha... interesting topic. Though I've thought of the same thing as Nani_Cheri. I think they had cloth for it... or at least animal hide. For the pre-toilet paper stuff, I think they'd use anything. O_o If they have no other choice, they probably use their hands... (ew) But of course, I'm sure they have water for that. I still think they use their hands as a last resort because it'll reaaally stink and people they meet will get grossed out. They probably used anything like leaves and other stuff.

I'm so thankful I'm living in an age where it's pretty hygienic.

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I guess people might have been using cloth or paper or tree bark or maybe just water and hands.

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