Page "Toilet paper" Paragraph 9

Elsewhere, wealthy people wiped themselves with wool, lace or hemp, while less wealthy people used their hand when defecating into rivers, or cleaned themselves with various materials such as rags, wood shavings, leaves, grass, hay, stone, sand, moss, water, snow, maize, ferns, may apple plant husks, fruit skins, or seashells, and corncobs, depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs.

In Ancient Rome, a sponge on a stick was commonly used, and, after usage, placed back in a bucket of saltwater.

Several talmudic sources indicating ancient Jewish practice refer to the use of small pebbles, often carried in a special bag, and also to the use of dry grass and of the smooth edges of broken pottery jugs ( e. g., Shabbat 81a, 82a, Yevamot 59b ).

These are all cited in the classic Biblical and Talmudic Medicine by the German physician Julius Preuss ( Eng.

trans.

Sanhedrin Press, 1978 ).