Through the Years: A Gallery of the World's Toilets
Roman Toilets
A Roman-era public restroom in Ephesus, Turkey.
Toilets in Wartime
Latrines and cooking pots mingle near the front lines during World War I. The soldiers' pit latrines are directly behind the open-air kitchen where three army cooks are preparing food.
Bathroom in 1918
A typical American bathroom in 1918, as seen in an advertisement for the G. C. Glass Plumbing company.
Privy, North Carolina, 1914-1915
The less well-off would have made do with a simple outdoor privy.
Outhouses
Outhouses in back of a butcher's work area in Sydney, Australia in 1900. This photograph was taken in a quarantine area during an outbreak of bubonic plague.
Barrelman
A 'strontschepper,' or feces-collector, collects toilet waste in buckets in this 1953 photograph taken in Amsterdam.
Open Sewer, Uganda
n open drainage channel flowing through a low-income area of Kampala, Uganda. There are no adequate sanitation facilities in this area so the drain is contaminated with raw sewage.
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Makeshift Latrine
A makeshift latrine in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Children Play Near Open Sewage.
Children play over an open sewer in the slum of N-gombe in Lusaka, Zambia.
Building a Latrine
Construction of a latrine slab as part of a WaterAid sanitation program helping a poor community in Tamale, Ghana.
A New Latrine
Mithu, next to the latrine his family built following a WaterAid program in Laloich village, Mohanpur district, Rajshahi , Bangladesh.
Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior. She was previously a senior writer for Live Science but is now a freelancer based in Denver, Colorado, and regularly contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.