Poop Happened! A history of the world from the Bottom up - Zachary Frey

[Zachary]

Poop Happened, written by Sarah Albee, is a 7 year old's dream come true. The history of poop, and the effects of poor waste management. However, this book actually has factual information as to why a human's excrement has caused many different diseases. Why? Because the people of the old days put their excrement into the nearest river or the nearest privy pit. Then the entire neighborhood got their daily water supply, from the same river. There was no plumbing back then, nor toilets. All that was used were chamber pots, which was essentially a toilet, but with no flush or hole at the bottom. And the Romans were the closest to having pipelines, as there have been records of lead pipes under Rome. But, they were made of lead, which does poison people. However, Leonardo DaVinci did have ideas for a flushing toilet, but he unfortunately died before he could invent such a marvel. But, even with the miracle of flushing toilets, where did the bodily fluids and solids go? There are a few answers to this, already previously mentioned. Either a river, or a privy hole. But if you lived in a castle, then you threw it into the moat. (That's what the moats were for). And America was exactly the same as their England counterparts. And eventually, people came to their senses, and realized that their diseases could be from the water, as the water pump had been invented. The people asked themselves "Why are the people drinking from this water fountain getting sick, when the other people a few blocks away aren't?" Well, the simple answer to that was the water that was going to said pipes were from the rivers, which were already fairly polluted. However, certain water routes lead straight through some old privy pits, further contaminating the water. Thus, more people got sick of old diseases. It wasn't until around 1885 that Thomas Crapper, with help of some other brilliant inventors, developed a toilet, that was all in one piece, which prevented leaking. Thus, the common household toilet was made. And with this new flushing toilet, sewers were developed, so the waste can go into the sewers, into the ocean, with the help of the tide. And it's all been pretty much the same since then, with the exception of those really weird Japanese toilets, with heated seats, and other toilets that can flush half of what they're supposed to flush, which is to get rid of only liquids. But lets go back before the modern toilet, but big cities were now where most people lived. Where did their poop go? On the street. In fact, most people did this if they weren't near a river, or didn't have a privy pit to put their waste in. That's why you see the men closer to the road, and the ladies having parasols, in the middle of the day. So, I guess you could say that without the ways of the old, our lives wouldn't have been the same. Otherwise, we would still be drinking polluted water, while pooping in chamber pots. And don't even get me started with the animals...They went where they pleased, and it stayed there til someone went to go get it.

Overall, I enjoyed Poop Happened! It's a interesting read that many young kids would want to get, only to not understand what it says until a few years later. And we wouldn't have any of the jobs or utilities of today, such as those sewer guys, who help push your waste toward the ocean, or toilets. We as a society have learned from the past, to help our future. And if you really think about it, the best countries have the best sanitation, and waste management. Poop Happened! gets a five out of five stars. The book just doesn't talk about the danger's of poop either, it talks about the jobs people had to get rid of the waste, to different diseases caused by poor waste management, like dysentery(a.k.a, the worst way to die. You have diarrhea till you die of dehydration). And I want you to think about this little fact the next time you flush the toilet. When you flush, that waste isn't just evaporating into thin air: it's just being pushed away from you. And eventually, our poop gonna come back and haunt us, with our ever-growing population. And this book has a pretty clear theme: Poop did happen, but what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna be like the 99 percent of, for example, America, and flush it down the toilet, or are you gonna be the one percent, and figure out what to do with all that poop.

[Hannah]

amen