Customer Reviews

Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most people just don't understand
the wonder of the flush
Now here comes Hodding with his book
To get you off your tush

The Romans they used aqueducts
The French called "Garde L'eau"
London stank before they learned
to use the water flow

Where now exists a porcelain bowl
With custom seat and lever
Once plagued the mighty London town
with cholera and fever

All the people in the world
Make tons of poop each day
We never bother where it goes
Once we flush it away

We need to find efficient ways
To utilize our waste
A topic that we all ignore
And treat with much distaste

So all hail the humble plumber-guy
No joking `bout the crack
Without his help the stuff you flush
may soon be coming back

A simple, concise, funny book
the writing's off the wall
The perfect gift for homeowners
for reading in the stall


Amanda Richards, July 7, 2006

Carter, a "great sanitation scholar," gives us an outstanding tour of the world of plumbing; several tours, actually. One is the historical tour, from classical times to the present day and beyond. Carter goes back to the Romans, whose pipes made of lead ("plumbum" in Latin) gave us the word for plumber. The trip through time make brief stops in the dark ages, where monks railed against pagan rituals of water and washing, while quietly enjoying the highest levels of sanitation around. Carter's next historical high points come in the 18th and especially 19th century, when Europe finally recovered and surpassed the Romans' level of engineering sophistication. The story continues into today, with recent innovations like the 1.6 gallon flush, and into some truly exciting possibilities for the future of human waste processing.

Another kind of tour lets us visit the technologies of waste removal. Up until the 1800s, that largely consisted of an open window, a shouted warning to anyone passing below, and a mighty heave of the "thunder mug," which left the streets in a condition that beggars modern imagination. From there, Carter works up to the high-tech digesters that biologically decontaminate Boston's sewage stream, and to practical demonstrations of recovering energy from methane given off, or even bacterial fuels cells that generate electricity directly.

It's also a story of social progress. People live longer and fewer children die of disease spread by fecal contamination, to be sure. Carter also describes low-tech innovations in India that promise to improve the lives of the untouchable undercaste, once they are freed from the necessary but "unclean" duty of clearing away the human waste of India's hundreds of millions.

Not least, it's a story of Carter's own adventures and misadventures with the maze of pipes behind his own walls. That's part of what makes this book so enjoyable: the enthusiastic and highly personal tone of his writing. It's a summary of his wide-ranging studies in what we do with the poo, but always light and readable. I fault his research for only one small point, his neglect of the New World before the European arrival. The Aztecs built some of the world's most populous pre-technological cities and dealt with their excreta much more effectively than European cities of the same size and period. Still, it's an informative and enjoyable look at what we'd usually rather not look at.

//wiredweird, reviewing a complimentary copy

So many things we take for granted, not just the little matters that avoid our brain cells for lack of interest, but even the major aspects of the basics of living. W. Hodding Carter has provided at least one repair job for that lack of understanding of how things work and an appreciation for the history of a major system in our homes in his fascinatingly rich little book of facts and perusings on water - as it comes into our homes, as we consume it, use it as an accompaniment to our food intake, wash our laundry, and as we literally flush it out of our domains. This wonderful little book FLUSHED: HOW THE PLUMBER SAVED CIVILIZATION may carry a title that borders on grandiose convictions, but it most assuredly is a resource of just how our plumbing system works and, more interesting, how it came to be in the first place!

Carter embraces water and waste with the passion of a zealot and that tone makes reading his book all the more delightful. He takes us back to the formative thoughts of how the earth ('a whirling molten sphere spinning around the sun, releasing superheated gases into space, something like an orbiting overgrown Walter the Farting Dog'), while cooling, turned those gases into vapor, condensed them and created water. From the earliest civilizations he explains how man's need for water to live resulted in the gradual development of bringing water into the dwelling and eventually (very eventually) getting the water, now accompanied by waste, back out of the dwelling. And here begins a history lesson that travels through the Greeks and Romans, the Indians, the Japanese etc discovering along the way the ingenuity of aqueducts, lead/clay/wood/cement/brick/PVC piping all the way to the current state of the art Japanese Toto Washlet S300 which not only serves as an exit for yesterday's meals but adds the luxury of cleaning the owner simultaneously!

Carter's writing style varies with each chapter: when he is discussing his personal involvement with learning the art of plumbing he is comfortably conversational, and when he is delving into the intricacies of history his descriptive manner changes appropriately to thesis style. But at no point does he lose the reader's attention. He is bright, if a bit of a 'true believer', humorous, warmly concerned about some bigger issues about which he hints, and in the 'end' has written a book that educates, illuminates, teaches and entertains. Who could ask for more? Recommended for all curious readers. Grady Harp, July 06

We were eating at Balthazar's yesterday and found this book in all places--the bathroom or the BUD (Bathing, urinating and defecating room), as Mr. Carter would have us call it. It is hilarious--had me laughing on the floor 2-3 times and chuckling out loud in bed--which is really weird since I thought it was just going to be a typical guys book. He writes about the things I've always been afraid to talk about with charm and serious understanding. I loved it. Great stuff on the dalit (untouchables) in India near the back of the book. His writing reminds me of some other author I can't remember right now that I use to love--very simple and straightforward.

This book, if merely for its chosen subject matter, had a lot of promise. At times the author taps this promise well, but he often struggles with personal tangents which don't hold the interest of this reader. The best parts of the book are when he takes a broader view of the implications of water, waste, and plumbing for civilization; in this way, I thought the book closed well. The MAJOR weakness of this book is its total lack of illustrations or photos. There are many points at which he is describing spatially complex structures or contraptions, and a photo or diagram would serve the readers' understanding well. Why a book which is about engineering -- even if it is not an exceedingly serious text -- would not have graphics is beyond me.

Carter's book is a wonderful read. It's light hearted, slightly "off the wall" and very informative. Some of the information regarding ancient public and private sanitation systems was already known to me, but I was particularly impressed with the author's unwillingness to just take the historian's word on the subject as a given. His attempt to create a Roman style pipe was not only very funny, it was very informative. His search for a pipe in situ was impressive--not to mention enviable; I would love to hop a plane to a foreign land just to satisfy my own curiosity about some topic.

The book is very well written and pulls the reader along with its wit and humor. Although the subject is one few individuals actually take time to consider, it is one of the more important issues facing mankind even today. As the author notes, several million people in third world countries do not enjoy the benefits of clean water and sewage removal. When I took a class on the history of medicine some time ago one of the things pointed out was that despite the acknowledged technological changes in medicine, the two most significant events with respect to human health and longevity were the introduction of antibiotics and public sanitation. In fact, of the two, the latter is probably the more significant.

It was interesting to notice how fitful have been the advances in sanitation, especially since its significance was already recognized in prehistory. If the ancient people of the Indian subcontinent realized the benefit of the technology even before the advent of the written word, its slow progress seems odd. As the author points out, even the "modern" toilet is a 19th century product, which has changed only in minor details. Carter's interview with and discussion of the toilet technology introduced recently in India is especially interesting, because it suggests that the solution to the problem of waste removal might also conceivably provide a solution to energy issues.

THOSE WRITING PAPERS on history, history of medicine, history of science, anthropology, sociology, poly sci. For what reasons might public sanitation have failed to progress more evenly through time? What types of resources might a society need to possess to carry out sewage removal and water purification? What did this author prove by carrying out his experiment in making and assembling a Roman type pipe? What types of knowledge might earlier people have lacked that made public sanitation seem unnecessary? Archaeological studies of earlier pre-agricultural societies suggest that, despite what was previously believed about them, early hunter-gatherers were actually healthier than agriculturalists. Why do you think this was the case? What would this author have to say about it? Why might a government not want to extend sanitation? What effect might lack of sanitation in 3rd world countries have on the developed world? What issues in 3rd world countries perhaps impede the progress of this type of technology?

As funny as the book is, the author makes some remarkable and important points about the future of our planet and our species.

"Flushed" is author W. Hodding Carter's quest to understand the past, present, and future of sewage and humanity's efforts to deal with it. It is both a record of Carter's hands-on approach to the subject and a history of major developments in toilets, sewerage systems, and water treatment though the ages. Carter gives us the blow-by-blow of his attempt to replicate an ancient Roman lead pipe (Roman plumbers were probably better at avoiding lead poisoning) and sings the praises of his fancy new Japanese toilet (A Toto Washlet S300. It washes and dries your heinie.). "Flushed" takes us through history as great civilizations try to figure out what to do with all that poop, from ancient Roman baths and aqueducts, through the realities of chamber pots and cess pools in Medieval through Enlightenment Europe, to London's Great Stink of 1858 and subsequent sewerage system designed by Joseph Bazalgette, to modern water treatment systems and techniques for turning methane-rich excreta into fuel.

"Flushed" isn't comprehensive, but it's a winning introduction to the age-old endeavor to deliver water to the population, to separate humans from their waste, and to do something with the resulting mess. The book's subtitle "How the Plumber Saved Civilization" is only an exaggeration in that plumbers need the help of engineers to do all this. Urban living, and therefore modern life, would be impossible without efficient methods of removing and processing of billions of gallons of sewage every day. To see how it's done, Carter takes us on tours of the London sewers, the Deer Island water treatment facility that cleaned up Boston Harbor, and to a Sulabh International biogas plant in India, where waste is turned into fuel and relatively clean water. "Flushed" is a light-hearted, amusing, easy-to-read survey of that inevitable byproduct of civilization, sewage, and a reminder that we haven't yet hit upon a perfect method for disposing of it -though there are possibilities on the horizon.

Some modern conveniences are so accepted without a second thought or the slightest hint of complexity that it is truly difficult to discover their origins or vital role in society.

Good plumbing is one such topic. Carter handles it with skill, insight and loads of poop (see the definition next paragraph). Basically, good plumbing brings good water in and takes bad water out so that leaks don't become leaks. He also spends enough time dealing with the solid substance of bad water to emphasize the importance of the whole subject to modern health and life. To understand plumbing takes more than knowing pipes; it also requires knowledge of the materials moved in those pipes.

It is an often blunt book. Everyone pees and poops, but few think beyond flushing. My 'Handy College Dictionary' with "over 100 printings" defines copulate but not coprolite or poop, except to define "poop" as the raised deck in a ship's stern or, in slang terms, "information".

(This suggests an interesting scenario: a foreign student, with some schoolyard English and a handy college dictionary, is invited to the White House and tells the host "I need to leave you some 'information' from my country". The gracious host responds, "Just leave it on the desk in the Oval Office". Funny people, these Americans. They have some really useful dictionaries.)

Okay, so maybe that's not very likely. After reading this book it would be utterly impossible, and a person would be well versed in understanding the complexity of matters handled by plumbers and municipal sewage plant workers. He doesn't deal directly with 'Montezuma's Revenge', but he offers grim details of the "revenge" of not having good plumbing.

On that basis, it is an invaluable introduction to modern ecology. Clean water and waste disposal are trivialities in a world with only villages and small towns; but, they become matters of life and death for dense towns and cities. This applies to everything from human waste to waste newspapers to automobile and factory wastes.

Carter takes the simplest and most prevalent of waste and explains the competence and complications of safely handling it. It makes this book an ideal after-dinner topic; not to be gross, but to understand the essence of ecology -- there are consequences to everything we do.

It's a basic book for a society as inhibited and prudish as America. One final example: Carter seems astounded that castle moats were the latrine. Okay, I've stayed in castles. Ever see those little "bay windows" very high up on a castle's outside walls, often with a long dark streak down the wall under them? Just what do you think made those long dark streaks? (I did my bit.) Why do you think the host explained, "these conveniences were not used when the castle was under siege"?

So, if Disneyland wants reality, perhaps some long dark brown streaks need to be painted in strategic spots down its castle walls to be truly authentic. Really now, "authenticity" at Disneyland? (Does a Princess's poop smell?) It would be much better to get this book and get the real poop on poop instead of pap on pudgy pretenders. It's an absolutely fascinating example of what it means to truly "go back to basics".

Buy it. You won't find better "bathroom reading".

I liked reading about some of the gross things in this book. It was a good way to learn about history. I guess we are pretty lucky to live in a time when there's indoor plumbing. I always thought it would have been cool to be a knight but I wouldn't want to fall into a moat, which I learned was a big toilet bowl. I don't think I would have liked being an ancient Roman, either. They though using the bathroom was a team sport, No privacy whatsoever. But the best thing about this book was how it made me think about what the world will be like in the future and just what are we going to do with human, um, waste as the world's population gets bigger and bigger. We've got to come up with some new ideas, and soon!

This book is beyond clever: its captivating, informative and funny. I could not stop laughing and recommend it enthusiatically to all who think that they know everything about everything. With dexterity and wit, Hodding Carter shows we "know-it-alls" that we know next to nothing about plumbing, but we should. Flushed fills in the gaps in one's knowledge from the church in the Middle Ages to the current, innovative Japanese bidet. This is a "must read" for all who care to place the evolution of human behaviour and one's relationship to one's body in a
historical context. Carter seems abit obsessed about bodily functions, but perhaps, we should overlook this fact. Without his personal preoccupation with all things scatalogical, he would not have written this wonderful book.