Toilets and Night Soil
(Types, Treatment & A Bit of History)

May 2006

Japan Association of Drainage and Environment
Night Soil and Sewerage Research GroupPreface
Night Soil and Sewerage Research Group is a substructure of Japan Association of Drainage and Environment. This Group conducts research mainly on culture and history of toilets/night soil, and has been planning lecture meetings or field visits for seven years now. In
2003, in an effort to encapsulate our activities, we wrote a book called What do you think
Toilets and Night Soil? published by Gihoudou Publishing Co. We have also written articles for specialized field magazines to supply information on this field.
Night Soil had been used as fertilizer for farms until quite recently. A result of this practice
was the affliction of a large number of people with parasites. Flush Toilets using seweragesystem, which is the most popular type, community treatment plants, Johkasou (privatetreatment facility), had been effective in the eradication of parasite disease in a short periodof time.
This booklet is intended to inform people of other countries about toilet history in Japan.
At first glance, you might ask: Why should I bother reading about toilets (and other delicatematters) at all? Well, the convenient water-flushed toilets were not always available, youknow. Then, your next question might be: Hmmm…what did they use in those days?
There are seven chapters in this booklet. I’m sure you will find a selection that interests you.
To make the presentation more appealing and easily understood, we have carefully chosen
the photos to include here. By the way, this booklet is also available in the English language.
We hope this booklet will inspire you to acquire more knowledge of whatever interesting
bit of information catches your interest. And finally, we encourage you to try to improve
environmental and sanitary conditions in your own town or city.

Shuichi CHIDATeam Leader
Night Soil and Sewerage Research Group
Japan Association of Drainage and Environment

May 2006
Tokyo, Japan

Table of Contents
Page No.

Preface1.

Expressions About Human Excreta in Literary Products.......................................... 1

2.

History of Night Soil Treatment in Tokyo .................................................................93.

Establishment and Development of Night Soil Collection System..........................124.

Urine and Feces Separated Toilet Developed After World War II ..........................215.

Circumstance of Restrooms in the World ................................................................28

6.

The Situation of Night Soil-Derived Parasites in Developing Countries.................37

7.

Night Soil Treatment in Developing Countries........................................................43

CHAPTER 1
Expressions About Human Excreta in Literary Products

1.

Introduction

Japanese usually hesitate to refer to human ‘excrement and urine’, although in a few Japanese literary products, such as essays and novels, one can find the following expressions
concerning them: ‘urinating outdoors in a standing position’, ‘a chamber pot and urine bottle’, ‘collection night soil from houses by a farmer’, ‘the application of night soil’, ‘a shipcarrying night soil’, ‘night soil collecting business’.
2.

Literary Reference of Expressions

Several Japanese literary works are cited below from where the expressions mentioned
above are taken. Comments on what could be inferred from pertinent portions of the works
are also included, aided by some historical information.
• ‘Urinating outdoors in a standing position’

Even in the early days of civilization and enlightenment, just after the Meiji Restoration in the1870s, both men and women urinated in a standing position in the field.
This was probably the custom in those days.
Since ancient times, people defecated and urinated outside. After they could afford
to build a toilet hut in the backyard, they still went out of the house for defecation. It
was therefore common to urinate outside.
In a book of essays titled Folk Stories in Kohtoh by Mr. Sadanosuke Tanabe, andpublished in 1984 by Seishido, there is a story about father and son getting caught
urinating outside, by the riverbank. The setting is in Tokyo, about the end of Meijiera, around 1910. Here is an excerpt:
A steam ship sounding pop had already disappeared. We began to walk on the bank along the Onagi River.
……

1CHAPTER 2
History of Night Soil Treatment in Tokyo

1.

Introduction

Recently local municipalities tried to form a recycling-oriented society. However, during
the Edo era, which was over 200 years ago, there was already an ‘ideal recycling society’,so to speak. At that time, in Japan, human waste was used in farms as fertilizer. On theother hand, people in the westerncountries have an aversion to nightsoil. The Japanese has had a special night soil culture for a longtime, but over the years, chemicalfertilizer was used instead of night
soil because it was cheaper
Municipalities tried to find solutions. Many municipalities introduced Johkasou, a night soil ocean
dumping and sewerage treatment
system.
↑ Ayase night soil treatment facility

2.

Night Soil Sanitary Treatment System(1) ‘Solid and Liquid Waste Treatment Law’ and ‘Sewerage Law’ (1900)
Two laws, namely, ‘Solid and Liquid Waste Treatment Law’ and ‘Sewerage Law’,
were enacted in 1900 in order to prevent epidemic and improve sanitary conditions.
Under these laws citizens were obliged to collect garbage and night soil and the municipalities had to treat these wastes. In fact, at that time, night soil was still used as
fertilizer by farmers.
During this time, too, sewerage system was only used for removal of rain water from9CHAPTER 3Establishment and Development of Night Soil Collection System

This chapter describes an actual case of establishment and development of night soil collection system. Mr. Kihei Takasugi, a war veteran, was interviewed and what follows are intimate details of his experience of collecting night soil, which he first got to do as a prisonerof war in Okinawa with a ‘pig toilet’, and then as a farmer, an occupation he took up rightafter the war. Initially, the night soil collection was intended for his farm’s consumption as
fertilizer because manure was in short supply, but later on he saw the potential to earn additional income from making this into a full-time business.
1.

Night Soil Collection(1)

Collection by Handcart
It was not easy for farmers to get manure in those days. Fortunately, Mr. Takasugi
knew a colleague during his war days who owned twenty rental houses in Tokyo. He
was allowed to collect night soil from these houses; in those days, supply of night soil
always runs short because it was used as fertilizer.

↑ Wooden buckets for night soil

12

CHAPTER 4Urine and Feces Separated Toilet Developed After World War II

Many researchers have been engaged in solving toilet problems from medical and sanitary
aspects. Since night soil had long been used for agriculture, the research works targeted
how to kill parasites and bacteria, causing infectious intestinal diseases, in pits where theyeasily grew. These research works developed Taisho (1912-1926) toilets, multi-tank Ministry of Interior type toilets (later Ministry of Health type improved toilets) and Showa(1926-1989) toilets.
Ministry of Health type improved toilets were developed after some ten-year research (beginning from mid 1920s) in present Omiya City, Saitama Prefecture.
Sanitation Research Institute of Kanagawa Prefecture, with the late Mr. Takeru Kodama asDirector, began as early as 1945 to make a research on the practical use of urine and fecesseparated improved toilet inspired by Ministry of Health type improved toilet. In 1949 Mr.
Nobuo Muto, then just 23 years old, began to develop a urine-feces separated improved
toilet (UFSIT). It was his first project at the institute.
Dr. Nobuo Muto has lots of brilliant academic as well as practical achievements in the fieldof not only night soil but also solid waste. He is retired from Kanto-Gakuin University andis currently Professor Emeritus of the university and honorable member of Japan Society ofWaste Management Experts.
The following discussion is based on an interview conducted with Mr. Muto on October 14,2003.
1.

Introduction

Pathogens and parasites are found only in feces and not in urine. It is only logical these behandled separately. Another thing to consider is that amount of urine is ten times that of fe21

CHAPTER 5
Circumstances of Restrooms in the World

The following is a first person account of a Japanese traveler’s experience in restrooms inforeign countries:
When you first set your feet in a strange, foreign country, you will feel anxious and excited.
You cannot speak the local language, and you will use a lot of hand gestures. When you
finally made yourself understood, you will experience one of the happiest times of yourjourney.
I began traveling abroad out of curiosity. I have already visited more than thirty countries. I
found out that forms of toilets vary in countries like cultures vary in the world. I used to beperplexed by strange types of toilets during my early travels. Here are some of them.
1.

Public Restrooms in France and the Netherlands

You will see often a portable, box type restroom, settled on the sidewalk in European cities.
I found a pay restroom as the one in the photograph, installed on the corner of a park in Pau,France. I inserted two coins francs, it equaled forty yen in those days, into the slot, and thenthe door opened. I stepped in the box. The door closed automatically.
The inside of the room was clean, and a little toilet stool was immaculate. The bowl had noseat. I was reluctant to sit on the toilet bowl directly. You see a square hole under the mirror.
When I reached my hands into the hole, water ran out automatically and I washed my hands.
When the water stopped, warm air blew afterwards, and my hands were dried. The warm
air had deodorant to eliminate the smell in the box. I truly admired the French attention todetail.
Then I looked for a lever or a button for flushing, but I could not find one. I thought that the28CHAPTER 6
The Situation of Night Soil-Derived Parasites in Developing Countries

Eating habits and manners in which night soil is handled are closely related to spreading ofparasites. Parasites infection ratios were considerably high until the late 1940s in Japan.
The following is from the lecture delivered by Dr. Toru Onogawa, Doctor of Veterinary
Medicine and former Visiting Professor of Kyorin University, at the thirtieth regular meeting of Japan Association of Drainage and Environment on March 2, 2004.
1.

Success of Measures to Reduce Parasites Infection in Japan

Several holes were found in the excavation survey of the ruins of Fujiwara Dynasty locatedin Kashiwara City, Nara Prefecture. The decisive factor that the holes were the mark of toilets was that parasites ova were included in the soil near the holes. Parasites ova that weredetected were those of ascaris (roundworms), whipworm, liver trematode and Yokokawa
trematode. As this detection tells, human beings have been related toparasites from the ancient times.
Parasites are not common these days, but so many people were infectedby parasites that Japan was called parasites kingdom for some time afterWorld War II. Dysentery carriers were 70 to 80 thousand per year alongwith typhoid fever patients, and tuberculosis was also popular.
Although 60% of the total population was ascaris carriers, local healthcenters could not take any effective measures against parasite infection
because they were busy in taking measures against infectious diseases
represented by dysentery.
↑ The specimen of the roundworm

In this circumstance, a parasite prevention council was established in the late 1949 in pre-37

CHAPTER 7
Night Soil Treatment in Developing Countries

1.

Sanitary Condition in the World

Forty percent of the people in the world do not use toilets, according to the Environmental
and Development Summit in Johannesburg in 2002. From the view point of sanitation, it isa serious problem worldwide. However, Japan has a long history of toilet knowledge
and special toilet culture that is quite different from other countries.
Japan could help developing countries inthis aspect. For example, Japan started usingnight soil as fertilizer a thousand years ago.
As a result, Japan has accumulated much
useful knowledge concerning night soiltreatment.
↑ A public toilet, now under construction in Dhaka City2.

Types of Affordable Toilet Systems in Developing Countries

Seventy percent of people in India, 30% in Indonesia and probably a large percentage inother developing countries do not use toilets as part of their daily living. Moreover, collected night soil is discharged into rivers directly, that sometimes these rivers arecalled ’septic river’. The river water is murky black and smell of urine and feces.
(1) Sewerage Treatment System
Introducing a sewerage treatment system is difficult because the construction iscostly and takes long to complete. And many developing countries can not wait;
they have to solve this night soil treatment problem urgently.
(2) Johkasou(Japanese individual treatment Toilet)
43

Contact
Akio ISHII
mail address：VEG04501@nifty.com
3-22-3Musashinoshi Kichijouji Higashichou
Tokyo Japan 180-0002
Tel. +81-422-21-2772

46