Shooting the Shit - Let Us Get Rid of Transgender Bathroom Bigotry

Editor's note, 1 January 2022

It happens that one, on obtaining new information, changes one's opinion on things. This has happened to us. Events that took place in 2016 and 2017 caused us to seek information on gender ideology, leading to a complete turnaround on the issue of toilets. We've expounded our views on this in several posts, for instance these ones:

"Let Them Eat Cake" - Could It Be Any More Obvious That a Man Designed These Toilets? 

Things That Are Better Than Elvis

Divide [the Toilets] and Conquer [One of a Multitude of Aspects of Women's Subjugation to Male Violence]

Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero

Still, below follows an account of our views in April 2016./

 

The conclusion one comes to after five and a half years of running an intellectual toilet blog is that it is persistently topical. Bathrooms figure frequently in the news at the moment, due to the irrational and bigoted efforts by various US legislators to enforce bathroom bills that discriminate against transgender people.

This fabulous picture came our way via Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend. Image from lgbt.gaybies.

We have ranted a fair bit about how we are opposed to unisex toilets if they force one to share a sink with a barrage of bearded hipster dudes (and also if they force one to share a sink with a barrage of polyester-suited businessmen), due to a concern for women's safety.

However, the bigoted bathroom laws in the US have highlighted the fact that transgender people, as well as cis women, are at risk of suffering violence at the hands of men. For this reason we feel it is important to clarify our stance on gender-neutral bathrooms.

We are mentally cheering this bearded hipster dude on, waving balloons and blowing those festive rolled-up paper things that go "toot". Image from Transadvocate.

We are not the only ones to have pointed out that the biggest threat to women and children is not transgender people. Neither is it sharks, nor bears, nor deranged psycho killers armed with sharp implements. The biggest threat to women and children - and also to transgender people - is cis men. That is, normal dudes.

Transgender people are vulnerable to hate crimes and violence, and need to be protected from the bigotry of the uneducated. Let us, therefore, collectively embrace unisex toilets!

Unisex toilets, however, like any other toilets, need to be done right. There needs to be privacy and sturdy doors (instigators of flimsy cubicles will be put on our black list and branded as enemies of the people), and one needs the option to wash one's hands in seclusion. If bearded hipster dudes want to wash their hands together that's up to them, but we would rather not wash ours while being stared at by said bearded hipster dudes.

Here are some unisex toilets so cleverly designed that one doesn't even reflect upon the fact that they are unisex!

First up are the toilets in the shopping centre in Burlöv, outside Malmö. We don't spend a lot of time in shopping centres, whether in Burlöv or anywhere else, due to them being vile. However, we actually needed to buy something once, and consequently trekked to Burlöv. The staff were nice, and we suffered no unreasonable trauma. Moreover, the toilets were really cool!

The toilet sign! Quite friendly, isn't it? It has a binary gender approach which one could criticise if one were so inclined, but on the other hand it is enriched with Braille, and thus disability-friendly.
(To be honest, we have no idea how helpful this sign is, if at all, to a partially sighted person. Sometimes it is the thought that counts!)

How swish is this! Unfortunately we don't seem to have photographed the inside of these toilets,
but look how fancy the outside is!

Next, let us look at the toilets in the Orkanen building at Malmö University.

Here is a similar set-up to the one above - many doors, all with the binary toilet sign, and a disability toilet at the end.

We enjoyed this set-up hugely: a good mixer tap, plenty of soap, and paper towels.

Not one but TWO sturdy coat hooks!
At this point in the photography proceedings, we died a little from happiness.

The student union's toilet-based newsletter is called Skitviktigt.

The English-language version is called The Toilet Paper.

We have been to Malmö University many times, and have never even reflected on the fact that these toilets are unisex. Malmö University is rather prone to be crawling with bearded hipster dudes, but we have never felt threatened or uncomfortable here, and the toilets have always been clean and well maintained. Well done, Malmö University!

Let us finish with a festive video, to celebrate the arrival of the weekend! We went to see the Dixie Chicks the other day, and they were just as fabulous as you would expect. Let's have their supremely festive video about how to combat domestic violence. We are rather inclined to agree with the Dixie Chicks' statement that they "do not advocate premeditated murder, but love getting even".

Festive video - Dixie Chicks, Goodbye Earl

Related Reading

Previous posts featuring unisex toilets:

Love, Politics and the Revolution

Caitlin Moran Really Does Make Everything Better

Unisex Toilets - This Shit Gets Political

The Screaming Bloody Horror That Is Unisex Toilets, When Done Wrong

Hungover Ranting: Festschrift to Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend

An article we liked in Slate:

Breitbart Proves What We Already Knew: Trans Women Are Not Bathroom Predators

An article we liked in the Huffington Post:

Not in the Name of My "Protection"

We love Michael Kaufman, of the White Ribbon Campaign.

A woman called Emily Waggoner has, rather fabulously, created a map showing the locations of toilets that are safe for transgender people

Postscript

Some of our best friends are bearded hipster dudes.

Five Fabulous (And Frightening) Years: The Story of the Privy Counsel

Our sincerest contrafibularities! We have no memory of what we were doing on the day (ranting, no doubt, and perhaps drinking rum - possibly at the same time), but the Privy Counsel turned five on 18 October!

Five years! If we had had cake to celebrate with, it would most likely have looked like this.

Things have been grim of late. So grim, in fact, that we have repeatedly felt the need to google pictures of syphilis symptoms, just to remind ourselves that there are things we don't suffer from (although one Privy Counsel member does in fact harbour a case of bona fide genital herpes - however, we intend to stay true to our promise to keep the identity of this person a secret to our dying day (said promise does not, obviously, prevent us from dropping tantalising hints solely for our own amusement)). There are some good ones, for instance, here (do a page search for "syphilis", then click on the links).

The marvellous thing, though, about having access to a loose collective of intellectuals, connected by social media, is that something wonderful is bound to turn up sooner or later.

This cake would also not be incongruous at the Privy Counsel.

Last night, for instance, we learned that Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend has an exciting new project on the go.

Also Australian Friend surpassed herself in rampant intellectualism and invented a new word! Quizzlement - you heard it here first! The definition of the adjective is as follows: "Quizzled. adj. The state of perplexed beguilement imposed by a person on her admirer, through an act of mischievous ambiguity."

Then we suddenly remembered that BLOODY HELL WE HAVE BEEN GOING FOR FIVE YEARS. Let us tell you the story of the origins of the Privy Counsel!

This totally appropriate cake just screams "THIS ONE! YES! LET'S HAVE IT!"

Once upon a time, there was a country full of crap plumbing. Let's call it "Britain". Said crap plumbing was the cause of a pretty much constant stream of grumbling, mumbling, and outright ranting. One night, in the pub, Enlightened Friend suggested that we stop ranting and start a blog, if only to spare our friends from having to constantly listen to us moaning and bitching. We thought the notion was an excellent one, and set to enthusiastically, publishing no less than three posts on the first day.

The first post was called, bravely, Mixer Taps - the Controversy, and was short but loquacious. It said, simply:

Most British people see no need for mixer taps, as when they do exist, they don't work anyway. The rest of the world disagrees. The controversy continues.

Huzzah - our very first image!

Blog post number two, sporting the witty title Toilet Paper - Puppy Love (setting the tone for our happy habit of punning in an unrestrained manner), discussed the insane British obsession with quilted toilet paper. This groundbreaking essay posed the question:

Where does the British obsession with soft toilet paper come from? Why does bog roll have to be quilted? (Of all things, why quilted?) Is it due to the humiliations suffered during the Second World War, when millions of Britons were forced to keep a stiff upper lip while wiping their bottoms with newspaper?

FUCK OFF, PUPPIES.

The third blog post on this auspicious date, The Victorians - An Edifying History Lesson, described the Victorians as "a barbaric people who delighted in such unhygienic and downright dangerous practices as sideburn cultivation, wall-to-wall carpet installation, and lace-curtain twitching". Needless to say, this is now the standard view of the Victorians in all respectable academic circles.

Victorian toilets - pretty, but violently unsound.

After these initial - one could even say probing - posts, we moved swiftly on to reviews of museum toilets, starting with the Yorkshire Museum. We remember lurking nervously with the huge, clunky and LOUD camera we used to carry around in those days, on a wet October day. 

Mission accomplished without us being reported to the police or even, surprisingly, being openly accused of being perverts, we continued with the Castle Museum, where we spotted what is possibly the most amusing sign in the entire universe; a sign that perfectly summarises the unbridled lunacy of British plumbing:  

This sign unfortunately doesn't exist anymore.
Believe us, we have been back to check.

Pretty soon we were reviewing places like the disabled toilet at the Centre for Medieval Studies in York, and it didn't take long before we achieved legendary status among the depraved, the socially awkward, and the intellectual (i.e. our friends, and maybe five other people who clearly need to get off the internet and get a life).

We noted happily that this was "a toilet fit for Medievalists".

And now we've been at it for five years!

When we started this blog, it was specifically to rant about crap plumbing, because Privy Counsel HQ was situated in the UK, where people seem have a hard time realising that the 19th century like, ENDED. Now that we are more Scandiwegian-oriented, we have very little to complain about, plumbing-wise, and have taken to rant more about other things, like feminism. It appears that human rights is another area where people have a hard time realising that the 19th century ended and that we are, in fact, living in the 21st century now. It would be nice, we think, if everyone could at least step into the 20th century, both in terms of plumbing, and human rights.

We would like to take this opportunity of getting embarrassingly sentimental, weepy, and vapid, and expressing our heartfelt thanks to all our friends and comrades! Some of you have been with us from the start, some have joined along the way. Without the Privy Counsel Friends (and assorted cronies, hangers-on, and passive bystanders) sending us toilet photos, ranting with us, and dispatching emergency pictures of Elvis when times get tough, this bog blog really would not be possible.

Now, let's have a festive video before we embarrass ourselves further. We've had this one in a previous post, but really, can you ever get enough rum? Well, quite.

Festive video - Brothers Osborne, Rum

Hasta la vista!

Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend: Causing Quite a Stir!

Our day got off to a healthy - rude, even - start when we discovered some ribald Armitage gifs in our inbox! (We've said it before and we'll say it again - we've got the best friends!) We also received pictures of some quite breathtakingly rude toilet graffiti from Uncle Sean, which we are looking forward to showing you very soon.

Today, however, we are going to be engaging in one of the few activities ranked above "perving on Armitage gifs" at the Counsel - ranting about mixer taps!

Also, we have a new Privy Counsel Friend to introduce! Let us yodel in an unbridled manner and drink a toast to the person we have decided to call Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend! Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend sent us the below picture, saying: "I found this the other night and thought of you."

Did your jaw just hit the floor, painfully?
Ours did.
The grace and elegance of this appliance reminds us of the lavoire.

We are gobsmacked and eighteen kinds of bamboozled. There is too much beauty here for the human mind to comprehend! Bring out the mop and bucket - the combination of stylishness, practicality and hygiene has set off a flood of rampant salivation at Privy Counsel HQ! We don't know where this gizmo is (though we suspect somewhere in New York), if it is common, or if it is new-fangled or historical, but it surely is a thing of beauty!

This graceful porcelain contraption attaches to the sink and lets the water from the hot and the cold tap mix, creating an enjoyable flow of pleasantly tempered water in which to wash one's hands. Now, like the Danish "subjunctive taps", this set-up necessitates fiddling with taps, which is decidedly not one of our favourite activities - we would much prefer moving a lever. (Or, if that is not an option, perving on Armitage gifs, or, if that is not an option either, drinking whisky straight from the bottle.) However, it allows one to wash one's hands comfortably, in water that is neither freezing nor scalding, thus allowing one to take one's time and do it properly.

Of course, there will always be perverted minds and degenerates. Enlightened Friend, playing Devil's advocate, made quite an effort arguing against this hygiene-facilitating contraption, claiming - oh fuck it, we can't even remember the mess of garbled gobbledegook that issued forth from this normally intelligent person. Suffice to say that we won the argument - twice.

We won't get into the whys and the wherefores of the whole tap separation idiocy, as it tends to alternately make one's blood boil and freeze it, which is very tiring. Instead, we'll list links to our previous rants on the subject below the festive video.

Since our latest Privy Counsel Friend, Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend, is in fact a rootin'-tootin' Texan, we thought we'd have a festive video featuring another kick-arse rootin'-tootin' Texan lady - Kacey Musgraves! (The song is even vaguely plumbing-related!)

Festive video - Kacey Musgraves, The Trailer Song


Related Reading
All our previous rants about tap separation idiocy:
Mixer Taps - The Great Controversy, or, When Will Britain Enter the 21st Century?, or, You Are Not Alone!

Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Terminator Toilet
A Note on Desperate Measures
Tap Into Pain
Les Conduites Dangereuses: For Once It's Not Just Us Ranting

The History of Plumbing: A Recap

In this post, we looked into the NHS guidelines on handwashing. We've said it before, but it bears repeating: the NHS handwashing guidelines are impossible to adhere to without a mixer tap:
Dirty People: We Wash Our Hands of Them!

A very important reminder of why exactly handwashing is so damn important:
A Christmas Mystery: The Mysterious Case of the Curse at Crapper Castle, or, Put a Lid on It, or, No Shit, Sherlock

Some of our favourite handwashing videos: Handwashing Extravaganza!

Look, even Jonny gets the point of mixer taps: The Comfort of the Familiar - Life, Jonny, and Everything

Not strictly related, but Australian Friend sent us this festive article: UK's first "poo bus" goes into regular service

"Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time" - A Review of 2014 at the Privy Counsel

Well, that's Christmas done. Most people are now back home, constipated, unable to button their jeans, and resolved to never spend several days in the company of Aunt Margery's onion breath and casual racism ever again. A new year, in which we will all do our utmost to avoid our relations, is about to dawn! A new year, in which we haven't yet mortally offended anyone, or got way too drunk and spent a whole day quietly leaking bodily fluids and wishing for death, or burned the pasta. (Yes, actually burned. Pasta.)

So, in order to draw a line under the unbroken procession of fuck-ups and screaming bloody horrors that constituted 2014, let's do a review of the Privy Counsel year. We have selected twelve of our favourite posts to represent the year as a whole, and we rather thought we'd review them in a whimsical, intellectual manner, whether you want us to or not.

Ahem.

Blogge poste the firste:
(Don't) Aim for the Stars

Why do some men piss on the floor? Why? Why? Why? Why in the name of arse? Why?
Shewee Fiend Friend, in a moment of despair, having tried to talk, to explain, to reason with the offending floor-defiler, contemplated homicide or at least dismemberment. In the end, however, she decided that moving to London was less of a hassle than trying to sort this guy out.

We stand in awe of the woman who wrote this note.
Image from flickr.com.

Poste the seconde:
Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction

Intellectual Friend, in a moment of - we are assuming - temporary insanity, used the word cute in an email to us. This could obviously not go unpunished. Intellectual Friend, in order to regain his honour and save himself from eternal shame and mockery, had to use his wits, and use them fast. We will say, in defence of Intellectual Friend's virtue, that he did well. We haven't, obviously, forgotten his using the word cute (it's gone on the record as The Faux Pas of Doom), but we have forgiven it.

This blood-thirsty young pirate is very far from being cute.
He is completely terrifying!

Poste the thirde:
Rampant Titillation - Basically, a Real-Life Epistolary Novel

Some of our posts got very, very long during 2014. This was one of them. In its defence, however, it also showcased Semi-Intellectual Friend's, shall we say, unique take on reality. Many of our readers, actually, have expressed their appreciation of Semi-Intellectual Friend's vigorous prose and dynamic use of imagery. For instance, Semi-Intellectual Friend hatched this gem of a paragraph:

Even when you're not around (admittedly, almost always), I'm doing things like preferring hand dryers over recycled paper towels in the hopes that the negative impact of such an act will be chain-reactioned through all the atoms of our existence and push a small stone into your shoe when you're running, just at the exact moment your foot hits the ground (yeah! that was me).

We have no idea what we'd do without the support of our friends. We'd be lost. Adrift. Flushed down the drain. We thank all the gods of the universe for the backing we receive from our friends.

Without our friends, we'd be isolated, unhinged, and in the dark, like the toilet on the right.

Poste the fourthe:
An Annoyingly Long, But Brilliantly Clever, Post, Including Shewees, Beer, and Some Other Stuff

This post got really long. Really long. But it had so much excellent stuff in it - beer! feminism! decorative mould! shrubberies! - that we just couldn't restrain ourselves.

Logically, this mould can be nothing other than a clever Art Nouveau-esque decoration.

Poste the fifthe
A Life-Affirming Experience

It was the heat. We swear, we kept chugging water, all night long, but - without wanting to be unnecessarily indelicate - it was so hot that we just sweated all the water right out. The result was not, perhaps, the worst hangover of our life, but definitely one of the top five. You'd think we'd have learned by now. But - the heat.

A girl's best friend in a tight spot - a clean, stylish Icelandic toilet.

Poste the sixthe:
Foul Play, Also Fowl Issues

In this post, we ranted about the pissiness of the universe, noted the sudden absence of dwarves in our archive (the pheasants, however, are still in place, and as boisterous as ever), and reminisced about "that time when we went to Sir Toby's with Obsessive Emmerdale Fan Friend, and some other nice friends, to watch the rugby, and Wales won, or lost, or disappeared in an earthquake, or similar".

Life is perilous, and we're not sure of the state of Wales, but here, at any rate, is a reassuring toilet-roll holder.

Poste the seventhe:
On the Nature of Academic Friendships

In which we philosophised on the state of having weird friends.

This water-saving toilet is IN A WINE MUSEUM.

Poste the eighthe:
Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, But Totally Trust the Toilet Attendant

In a fit of unbridled adventurousness we went to visit a friend in Athens. Greece has been hard hit by the economic downturn, but the locals were wonderfully friendly, the alcohol (and the coffee, and, oh God, the food) was tasty, and the plumbing was interesting and functional. Greece was also, in our experience, remarkably free from sexual harassment. We were only exposed to one very dispirited catcall during our stay, and we spent many hours travelling on the metro alone, wearing a short skirt. In fact, Greece is so awesome that we have, with Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend, hatched a plan to "open a feminist commune/library in Oia on Santorini. It's going to be amazing". We'll keep you posted.

This gentleman is called Bo. Here's how excited he is about the prospect of a feminist library.

Poste the ninthe:
Privy Counsel Pin-Up: Jonny! (Try to Restrain Yourselves.)

Every now and then, we post a photo of Jonny. Jonny is a nice boy but has very poor impulse control. If you could see some of the photos he's sent us but which we've decided - in the interest of mental hygiene - not to publish, you'd go park yourself on the toilet floor and never get up.

Still, this is inarguably an awesome photo.

Poste the tenthe:

Rosy-Fingered Dawn (But No Bloody Lock on the Door) in Istanbul

Sometimes our rampant intellectualism takes even us by surprise. What compelled us to quote classical Greek poetry in a bog blog remains a mystery, but there you are. We were quite excited by the prospect of travelling to Athens via Istanbul, and in many ways, we weren't disappointed. The quality of toilets at Istanbul airport was uneven, and if we were to use one word to sum up the facilities, it would be unreliable. However, the coffee was good, and the staff in Starbucks were the friendliest people we have met anywhere.

THE LOCK DIDN'T BLOODY WORK. AAARRRRRGGGH.

Poste the eleventhe:
Lead Pipe Dreams

As regular readers are aware, we love ranting. Love it! Nothing gets our juices flowing like a good rant, especially a plumbing-related one. Turns out we have finally met our match! 2014 was the year in which we introduced Exuberant Archaeologist Friend, who turns out to be a champion among ranters. A champion!

"Who are the barbarians now, motherfuckers?"

This lead pipe, marked "Vespasian", has been officially declared The Sexiest Lead Pipe of the Year.

Poste the twelfthe:
Rocking, Rolling, Ranting

2014 was also the year in which the question of which way to hang the toilet roll was finally settled. There need be no more discussion on this subject now.

If you suffer from combative flatmates, the vertical position is recommended.

2014. Some stuff that happened was BADASS. Some of it was just bad. Let's have a festive video and get it on with that champagne!

Festive video - Maddie & Tae, Girl in a Country Song

Related Reading

Caitlin Moran on women in music wearing no clothes (from a Marie Claire interview):

It’s like if every single male artist dressed up as farmers. In every video they were on a farm. Whether it was Jason Derulo or Oasis, they’re always on a tractor, they’re always surrounded by sheep and always in boots. And all the songs are about enjoying farming, and this is all you've had for ten years – you’d think you were going mad.

Postscript

If you are in need of spiritual solace, rest assured that 2014 was also the year in which The Prettiest Mixer Tap in Britain was introduced. Contemplating it is very soothing. Thank you, Tudor Friend.

The Prettiest Mixer Tap in Britain

Post-Postscript

2014 was also the year in which our friend Jane started her blog Temple of Janus. This blog is - if this is indeed possible - even more rampantly intellectual than our own humble bog blog! Jane specialises in sexy pictures of features of medieval architecture - of the kind that keep scholars the world over up at night, salivating into a bucket. There is also fierce, groundbreaking analysis.  It's a scream!

Woof! Cholera Babe Parade!

It's no use struggling against the unavoidable: the Cholera Babe Parade has been conga-ing inexorably in our direction, and now it's here! It was bound to happen sooner or later, so we may as well bow to the inevitable and bid the Cholera Babes welcome as they thrust their way into our lives and take over everything.
Discerning readers may be scratching their heads, wondering what in the name of arse a Cholera Babe actually is. Put simply, it's a red-hot Victorian babe in the process of dying from cholera! The symptoms of cholera include, Wikipedia informs us,

[d]iarrhoea and vomiting of clear fluid. These symptoms usually start suddenly, half a day to five days after ingestion of the bacteria. The diarrhoea is frequently described as "rice water" in nature and may have a fishy odour. An untreated person with cholera may produce 10 to 20 litres of diarrhoea a day. Severe cholera kills about half of affected individuals. Estimates of the ratio of asymptomatic to symptomatic infections have ranged from 3 to 100. Cholera has been nicknamed the "blue death" because a person's skin may turn bluish-gray from extreme loss of fluids. 

If that's not sexy we're not worthy of gazing at pictures of be-cravatted Austen heroes!

Other symptoms of cholera include, as Unreasonably Attractive Friend noted, the sudden appearance of "a lower-cut dress".
Image from Wellcome Images.

Shewee Fiend Friend says:
"I like how she still does her hair. If I had cholera and was starting to look like a zombie,
I don't know that I would bother with making sure I had excellently coiffed hair."
Image from Berndt Tallerud's Skräckens tid: Farsoternas kulturhistoria (Stockholm: Prisma, 1999), p. 127.
Originally an etching by A. Gerardin, 1832, from H. Vogt's Das Bild des Kranken.

Woof! A (very attractive) friend of ours says,
"Haha, the first one looks familiar.... I believe I saw it in the bathroom mirror this morning".
Image from Wellcome Images.

Shewee Fiend Friend remarks, amusingly, "She didn't bother to do her hair I see. Standards are slipping".
Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend says, and we can only agree, "Them's some sexxy toes".
Image from Wellcome Images.

Shewee Fiend Friend continues her diverting quips, commenting,
"It looks like you're required to wear these hats if you're too dead to do your hair".
Image from Wellcome Images.

"A woman extravagantly equipped to deal with the cholera epidemic of 1832; 
satirizing the abundance of dubious advice on how to combat cholera."
Image from Wellcome Images.

"A mother looks askance at her daughter, whom she suspects of having contracted the cholera."
Image from Wellcome Images.

A French doctor delighted to have found a genuine cholera victim/babe.
Image from Wellcome Images.

The babe to out-babe all babes: Florence Nightingale! Here she is tending to cholera victims in the Crimea.
Image from Wellcome Images.

Dr Jekyll's vaporiser is effective against cholera, rheumatism and yellow fever.
Wouldn't surprise us if it was a hell of a hangover cure, as well.
Image from Wellcome Images.

London water - frequently the cause of cholera.
Image from Wellcome Images.

Turns out he knew something, John Snow.
7 September, 1854: Dr John Snow breaks the pump handle in Broad Street, to prevent the spread of cholera! HUBBA HUBBA!
Image from Wellcome Images.

Stay tuned for the Cholera Babe Pin-Up Calendar. (We meant to write a book about this in future, but it turns out someone already has.)


Other reasons a lady might turn black and blue:


Festive video: Jane Austen's Fight Club

Related Reading
More about John Snow and cholera: Plumbing, Blessed Plumbing
The Vikings had issues with clean water, too. Jorvik: In Rude Health
Help people get access to clean water: The Privy Counsel Helpfully Sort Out Christmas!
A comical tale about cholera in the wild, wild West: A Rootin', Tootin' Toilet Tale
More historic health hazards: Book Club: Cocoa and Corsets
Pestilence and Hygiene
Syphilis, Bathing, and Dentures. You know It Makes Sense