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You are here: Home / History / When was toilet paper first used and what did people use before the invention?

When was toilet paper first used and what did people use before the invention?

July 29, 2020 by Karen Hill

The Chinese were the first to use toilet paper by recycling paper that had already been used for other purposes.

How do we know this? Because a court official wrote in 589 A.D. that he was careful not to use documents with “quotations from the great writers.”

Before that? Well, there were leaves, rocks, or whatever was available. The Romans were a little more civilized; they used a sponge attached to a stick.

Toilet paper as we know it wasn’t invented until 1879 by an Englishman named Walter Alcock.

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Filed Under: History

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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