Toilets

Crapper did not invent the WC.

Euphemisms (at least for the Brits) for "toilet" or "lavatory" or "lav" or "dunny" that Adam lists include: bog, cloakroom, close stool, closet, commode, convenience, garderobe, gents, heads, jakes, khazi, ladies, latrine, loo, necessary, netty, place of easement, powder room, privy, smallest room, thunder-box, water-closet, and WC.

See our collected toilet lore and links.

And to be serious for a moment, as a result of sewer systems built by the Victorians in England, the infant mortality rate decreased to about 1% over the next 100 years. In countries such as Bangladesh it is still as high as 12%.

Contamination of drinking water is still the single biggest killer in the world and it always has been. As such, the humble lavatory is the greatest device ever invented in medical history.