China invented lots of things long before other peoples did like gunpowder and the compass but they had far less of an impact there than in the western half of the eastern continent because it was not what they were looking for at the time which was the philosophers stone which could turn lead to gold. So when the Europeans sailed to China they found all these inventions and brought them back Europe which caused quite a stir. One of those inventions was paper and therefore toilet paper. Before toilet paper was invented many different things were used to wipe human poop off your buttocks. The Romans had public baths and toilets and but they didn’t have toilet paper so they used a sponge on a stick and scrubbed their butt clean but if that doesn’t sound so bad to you then know it was used by the community which means when they were done with it they just stuck it into a tub of salt water for the next person to use. Other peoples were not any better. Native Americans and colonists used corncobs which they often reused and some people in India used seashells which does not sound like fun. After paper was discovered people started using old newspapers but that was bad because some types of ink are poisonous so people would die from newspaper poisoning. What a way to go. So a man named Joseph Gayetty made toilet paper with his name printed on it with nonpoisonous ink to let people know it was name brand. In the 1930s a toilet paper factory started to advertise their paper as “splinter free”. Can you imagine getting splinters it your butt?
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