HISTORY MUST HAVE HELD its breath that day in 1884 at the Health Exhibition in London. One can imagine the inventor's subordinates gathered around, drained of emotion, with furrowed brows. The room crackles with tension. Only Thomas Crapper himself, brimming with confidence, chain-pull in hand and poised for the big test, seems ready to meet the challenge head-on.
Was there a countdown? We don't know. But we do know that Crapper pulled the chain and down went three wads of paper. Another pull of the chain and away went a sponge. Then four paper sheets stuck to the bowl with grease. And then, Mother of All Flushes, 10 apples.
It was mankind's greatest hygienic breakthrough, the high-water mark of plumbing history. But the true, behind-the-scenes story of the flush toilet has been tossed in history's garbage can. There was no Watson as there was for Bell, no flash in the New Mexico desert that ushered in the Atomic Age, no invitation to the White House as there had been for Edison.
Even more tragically, Thomas Crapper has been robbed of his good name. He has become the butt of jokes. His place in posterity hangs by the barest of threads. It is time to make Thomas Crapper a household name as he deserves.
CONSIDER, FIRST, THE magnitude of his achievement.
The flush toilet, or water closet as it is called in Crapper's homeland, changed the course of history by allowing society to live with itself. It is more than valves and arms and floats that hiss and gurgle - the flush toilet is the very symbol of modern civilization. It has done more for public health than all the doctors since Hippocrates. Life without the water closet is, for most of us, a horror beyond imagination - so unspeakable and unacceptable that we cannot conjure up the prospect.
Over the years, many alternatives have been tried: compost toilets that rely on time and heat to evaporate the moisture and destroy the pathogens in the sewage, oil-flushed toilets that use recyclable mineral oil, bio-electric toilets that use heat and circulating air, incinerating toilets that reduce waste to ash, biological toilets that use enzymes to dissolve wastes, and earth closets that seal wastes in the soil.
But the old Thomas Crapper WC is still the best. Crapper's genius was a mechanism that allowed water to flush the toilet only when necessary. Lift off the lid of your own right now, and you'll see the basic mechanism: a float, a metal arm and a siphonic action to empty the reservoir. In short, he invented the valve that made flushing practical. In more than a century, neither the mechanical concept nor the basic shape of the Crapper invention has changed.
Not only is the flush toilet the most warmly received invention in human history, but it also is one of our few purely benevolent technological developments. In a world of nuclear weapons, pesticides and indestructible plastics, the Crapper WC is a breath of fresh air.
Was there a countdown? We don't know. But we do know that Crapper pulled the chain and down went three wads of paper. Another pull of the chain and away went a sponge. Then four paper sheets stuck to the bowl with grease. And then, Mother of All Flushes, 10 apples.
It was mankind's greatest hygienic breakthrough, the high-water mark of plumbing history. But the true, behind-the-scenes story of the flush toilet has been tossed in history's garbage can. There was no Watson as there was for Bell, no flash in the New Mexico desert that ushered in the Atomic Age, no invitation to the White House as there had been for Edison.
Even more tragically, Thomas Crapper has been robbed of his good name. He has become the butt of jokes. His place in posterity hangs by the barest of threads. It is time to make Thomas Crapper a household name as he deserves.
CONSIDER, FIRST, THE magnitude of his achievement.
The flush toilet, or water closet as it is called in Crapper's homeland, changed the course of history by allowing society to live with itself. It is more than valves and arms and floats that hiss and gurgle - the flush toilet is the very symbol of modern civilization. It has done more for public health than all the doctors since Hippocrates. Life without the water closet is, for most of us, a horror beyond imagination - so unspeakable and unacceptable that we cannot conjure up the prospect.
Over the years, many alternatives have been tried: compost toilets that rely on time and heat to evaporate the moisture and destroy the pathogens in the sewage, oil-flushed toilets that use recyclable mineral oil, bio-electric toilets that use heat and circulating air, incinerating toilets that reduce waste to ash, biological toilets that use enzymes to dissolve wastes, and earth closets that seal wastes in the soil.
But the old Thomas Crapper WC is still the best. Crapper's genius was a mechanism that allowed water to flush the toilet only when necessary. Lift off the lid of your own right now, and you'll see the basic mechanism: a float, a metal arm and a siphonic action to empty the reservoir. In short, he invented the valve that made flushing practical. In more than a century, neither the mechanical concept nor the basic shape of the Crapper invention has changed.
Not only is the flush toilet the most warmly received invention in human history, but it also is one of our few purely benevolent technological developments. In a world of nuclear weapons, pesticides and indestructible plastics, the Crapper WC is a breath of fresh air.
