Toilet paper
Papel higiénico
- Date
- 589 CE · confidence medium
- Place
- Chang'an (Xi'an), China
- Credited to
- Chinese society (mentioned by the scholar Yan Zhitui, 589)
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Use of low-quality paper sheets for personal hygiene, first documented when Yan Zhitui warned that paper bearing quotations from the classics should not be used. It marks the abundance of paper in China.
It slightly exceeds 500 CE, but is included for consistency with the development of Chinese paper in this era.
What it led to
- Industrial production of paper for household use (millions of sheets a year for the court in the 14th century)
- Personal hygiene and disease reduction
- Distinction between writing paper and consumable paper
- industrial manufacture of low-quality paper
- urban hygiene norms in China
- Western adoption only in the 19th century
Built on
- Urban sewer system and flush latrinec. 2500 BCE
- Paper (Cai Lun's process)105 CE
- Cai Lun's paper
- Chinese paper
- latrines
Made possible
- Perforated toilet paper roll1883
- Industrial household paper
- Paper napkin
- industrial toilet paper (1857)