Category:
Excrement

The Destroilet Automatic Combustion Toilet

The Destroilet was the first commercially successful incinerating toilet. They were sold in the 1960s and 70s, but after that the company seems to have gone out of business. Incinerating toilets, however, can still be bought.

image source: kohoso.us



More info from Lifting the Lid: An ecological approach to toilet systems (1999), by Peter Harper and Louise Halestrap:

Even without water for flushing, toilet wastes are mostly water. Urine is more than 98% water and faeces are more than 70% water. The actual amount of solid matter we excrete is quite small – less than 50kg a year, compared with around half a tonne with all the water included. It is tempting then, and technically possible, to deal with toilet wastes simply by dehydration, and this is the principal method adopted by some commercial dry toilets. One can go even further and incinerate the resultant dry matter, reducing it to a few kilos of ash. One US model, no longer produced, was called the 'Destroilet'...

Disadvantages:
  • an electricity connection is needed
  • electricity consumption potentially significant – often the toilet will become the largest-consuming appliance in the house
  • they are vulnerable to SHOCK LOADS – there is an upper limit to the rate at which it can accept inputs over a short period
  • problems often arise if the unit is not in continual use
  • the product may be hygienic when removed, but may not be actually composted and requires further treatment to become stable
  • there is a risk of total failure in the event of an extended power-cut

Sometimes such compact electrical toilets are the best and only solution, but in practice users are often dissatisfied. The units are very sensitive to misuse – readily overwhelmed by a serious party, for example. Re-commissioning after a breakdown is not a job for the faint-hearted. A common problem arises when the units are installed in holiday-homes and are left for long periods without use. The de-watering process can sometimes transform a mixture of toilet paper, urine and faeces into a kind of paper mâché that coats the innards of the toilet so tenaciously that it is almost impossible to remove. Its strength is so impressive one imagines there could be industrial applications for it.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 21, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Bathrooms, Body Fluids, Excrement

Automatic Cat Litter Box—Under Cat’s Control

I detect one small flaw in this concept, hidden in the phrase "the cat is trained..."

Full patent here.



Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 10, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Patents, Excrement, Cats, 1960s

Building houses with diapers

Concrete uses sand, and this is a problem due to a growing shortage of sand. However, Siswanti Zuraida, a researcher at the University of Kitakyushu in Japan, has proposed that cleaned and shredded diapers can be used in concrete as a sand replacement:

To make the first prototype, Zuraida reused diapers from her own young children. The team washed, sterilised and dried the diapers, before shredding and mixing them with different amounts of other materials, such as gravel or sand. This served as the aggregate that the team mixed with Portland cement and water to create concrete.

More info: New Scientist

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 30, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Architecture, Babies, Excrement

Jalaproctitis

Jalaproctitis is the medical term for the rectal burning sensation often experienced by people when they defecate after having eaten jalapenos. It was given this name by researchers at the University of Texas who conducted an experiment to study the effects of jalapenos (whether it acted as an expectorant, caused painful urination, and burning defecation). From the New England Journal of Medicine (Nov 16, 1978):

To investigate these issues, we prospectively studied participants in a jalapeno-pepper eating contest. Subjects included three women and two men ranging in age from 22 to 42. None had a history of lacrimation, rhinorrhea, dysuria or discomfort on defecation before the contest. One was a smoker, and one had cough and scanty sputum production before the contest.

After giving informed consent, subjects consumed as many large jalapenos as could be tolerated in a three-minute period. The number of peppers consumed ranged from three to 13, with a median of five. Three of the participants noted lacrimation and rhinorrhea immediately after the contest. In none did cough or sputum production develop. One male subject complained of dysuria, and four of five noted a burning discomfort on defecation within 24 hours of the contest.

The limited information obtained from this study does not indicate clinical usefulness of jalapeno as an expectorant. We believe that jalapenos may well be the cause of transient dysuria and, in addition, may result in a syndrome of burning defecation that might appropriately be termed "jalaproctitis."

Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 18, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Food, Experiments, Body Fluids, Excrement, Pain, Self-inflicted and Otherwise

SHT and SCAT

In his 1983 book Big Business Blunders: Mistakes in Multinational Marketing, David Ricks tells the following story:

A Japanese steel firm, Sumitomo, recently introduced its specialty steel pipe into the U.S. market. Sumitomo used a Tokyo-based, Japanese agency to help develop its advertisements. The steel was named "Sumitomo High Toughness," and the name was promoted by the acronym SHT in bold letters. So bold, in fact, that the full-page ads run in trade journals were three fourths filled with SHT. Located at the bottom of the page was a short message which ended with the claim that the product was "made to match its name." It simply cannot be overemphasized that local input is vital.

I've been able to find ads for SHT, such as the one below, but none exactly like the one that Ricks describes. Which doesn't mean the ad doesn't exist. Just that it isn't in any journals archived online.

Ocean Industry - July 1984



However, among the ads for SHT that I was able to find, I found one that actually improves (and possibly complicates) Ricks's story. Because it turns out that Sumitomo had another product, Sumitomo Calcium Treatment, that it abbreviated as SCAT.

Once I could accept as an honest mistake, but coming up with scatalogical abbreviations twice seems intentional. I'm guessing either someone at Sumitomo thought it was funny, or someone at the Japanese agency was having a joke at their expense.

Ocean Industry - March 1980

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 27, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Products, Odd Names, Excrement, 1980s

Hydrox Fecalis

In order to advance medical knowledge, Dr. Stephen Sulkes and a handful of volunteers ate Hydrox cookies and later checked to see if their poop had turned black. It had. They named this phenomenon 'Hydrox Fecalis.' Their results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Jan 5, 1984). Reproduced below:

To the Editor:

The presence of dark stools can be a cause of consternation to the patient and is made more anxiety-producing when accompanied by abdominal pain or other discomfort. The causes of melena are well outlined in several reviews, along with the usual non-heme causes of black stools, including iron, bismuth, charcoal, licorice, and certain fruits.

To this list should be added the colorings present in chocolate sandwich cookies. In several independent tests (with myself and several volunteers as experimental subjects), the presence of black stools approximately 18 to 24 hours after ingestion of 225 to 450 g of chocolate sandwich cookies has been observed. Variation in brand of cookie did not change the stool character. Testing with other types of cookie (oatmeal, peanut butter, and chocolate chip, among others) has not resulted in the same stool findings, although abdominal pain or nausea or both appear to be equally frequent associations.

This phenomenon may be on the increase because of shifts in U.S. dietary habits, so elicitation of a good dietary history in cases of black stools and abdominal pain should be pursued. Inasmuch as "cookie-induced pseudomelena" is both unprofessional sounding and too appropriately descriptive, a suggested name for this entity is "Hydrox fecalis."

Stephen Sulkes, M.D.
Monroe Developmental Disabilities
Rochester, N.Y.

Someone needs to repeat the experiment with Oreo cookies.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 16, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Experiments, Junk Food, Excrement

Cook with your own biogas

The HomeBiogas Bio-Toilet collects your poop and uses anaerobic digestion to decompose it, transforming it into biogas (methane) that you can use for cooking. The kit comes with everything you need: the toilet, the tent in which the methane conversion/collection happens, and the stove for cooking.

I'm intrigued by the idea, but I wonder if the methane would have any lingering smell. Can't find this addressed on the product website.

More info: HomeBiogas.com



Along similar lines, here's an article about a university in South Korea that's using human biowaste to power a building. People who contribute their poop, by using the toilet in the building, earn "a virtual currency called Ggool, which means honey in Korean." This currency can be used to buy goods on campus.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jul 20, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Excrement, Power Generation

Why Velna Turnage sued Christy Brothers Circus

From the case Christy Bros. Circus v. Turnage heard in the Georgia Court of Appeals, dated Sep. 15, 1928:

Where a petition alleged that the plaintiff was an unmarried white lady, and that while in attendance as a guest of the defendant at a circus performance given by the defendant, and while seated in one of the seats provided by the defendant for the defendant’s guests at the circus, a horse, which was going through a dancing performance immediately in front of where the plaintiff was sitting, was by the defendant’s servant, who was riding upon the horse, caused to back towards the plaintiff, and while in this situation the horse evacuated his bowels into her lap, that this occurred in full view of many people, some of whom were the defendant’s employees, and all of whom laughed at the occurrence, that as a result thereof the plaintiff was caused much embarrassment, mortification, and mental pain and suffering, to her damage in a certain amount, that the damage alleged was due entirely to the defendant’s negligence and without any fault on the part of the plaintiff, the petition set out a cause of action and was good as against a general demurrer.

Velna Turnage was awarded $500 for her "humiliation and embarrassment".

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 13, 2022 - Comments (6)
Category: Lawsuits, Excrement, 1920s

Knives made from frozen human feces

The non-fiction book Shadows in the Sun by Wade Davis contains the following passage:

There is a well known account of an old Inuit man who refused to move into a settlement. Over the objections of his family, he made plans to stay on the ice. To stop him, they took away all of his tools. So in the midst of a winter gale, he stepped out of their igloo, defecated, and honed the feces into a frozen blade, which he sharpened with a spray of saliva. With the knife he killed a dog. Using its rib cage as a sled and its hide to harness another dog, he disappeared into the darkness.

This caught the attention of some archaeologists who decided to test if a knife made from human feces would actually be strong enough to cut through muscle and tendons. They published their results in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The researchers paid close attention to detail. For instance:

In order to procure the necessary raw materials for knife production, one of us went on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which is consistent with an arctic diet, for eight days.

However, the results were disappointing: "the knife-edge simply melted upon contact, leaving streaks of fecal matter."

Conclusion: the story of the fecal knife was an urban legend.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 25, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Science, Experiments, Excrement

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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