Recognized early plumbing systems go back as far as around 3300 B.C. with the discovery of copper water pipes beneath a palace in the Indus River Valley in India. Proof of the first personal sized bath tub was found on the Isle of Crete where a 5 foot long pedestal tub was found built from hardened pottery. This tub is the most possible forefather of the classic 19th century claw foot tub. The Roman Empire is most broadly known as the early champions of bathing. Around 500 B.C. Roman citizens were confident to bathe daily in one of the many public baths. Private bathing rooms were far more ornate and classically would resemble shallow swimming pools that encompassed the entire room. The Romans used marble for the tubs, lead and bronze for pipes, and shaped a complex sewage system for sanitation purposes. The Roman Empire set the near the beginning bar for personal hygiene, as we know it today.

More about the bathtub

With the fall down of the Roman Empire, bathing and sanitation were a lost practice. During the Dark Ages, bathing was replaced by the make use of perfume. Chamber pots were predisposed of out the window and into streets and rivers that served as water supplies. This decline of sanitation in general made a fertile ground for germs that would ultimately bring on the Bubonic Plague. The Plague overwhelmed cities in Europe, many losing 1/3 to 1/2 of their population. While the Plague did move some governments to make improvements in sewage systems and water supplies, modern sanitation as we know it was not extensively adapted until the 19th century. The bathtub's modern spouse, the toilet, had its own issues in gaining receipt.

Conclusion

When Sir John Harrington published a book describing his invention, peers, awkward him to the point of retirement from the world of plumbing roundly chided him. His two toilets were the only two he ever shaped. The next water closet would not be seen for 200 years when Alexander Cummings introduced the water secret in 1775. This would be the very start of the modern bathroom age. It was now occasion for the piping to catch up with the fixtures. Up until the 19th century, the majority water pipes in the US were made from hollow trees. In the early 1800's cast iron manufacture began domestically reducing the reliance on England for the cast iron. Lastly in 1848, The National Public Health Act was passed in the US creating a plumbing code for the first time.