Chamber pot
A chamber pot or bedside tableware is a container for feces , urine and vomit in the household.
development
Portable urinals were common since ancient times. According to Athenaios, the invention of the chamber pot is attributed to the inhabitants of ancient Sybaris . The Amis is a Greek, amphora-like shape. The collection of urine was of particular importance to the tannery until the early modern period , where this was a valuable resource, so portable urinals were widespread.
The chamber pot goes back to the time when the toilets were still outside the house and were difficult to reach at night. The chamber pot was usually kept under the bed or in a bedside table or bedside cabinet next to the bed, used during the night and emptied in the morning. In the past, old pots that were no longer suitable for kitchen use or flower pots were often used, hence the name. There were and are industrially manufactured chamber pots made of glass, ceramic, plastic, earthenware or sheet metal or enamelled sheet metal.
A further development is the toilet chair (body chair, night chair) with an embedded collecting container. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was the Bourdalou , a larger hygiene item for women, for special occasions .
In medieval cities, where there were no toilets for households and in the absence of sewers , it was common to empty the chamber pot out of the window - sometimes over the heads of unwelcome guests or overlooked passers-by.
Elaborately decorated chamber pots, which were transported in a wicker basket from the servant to the doctor to Harnschau , were to be found in wealthy households in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Equipping the houses with water toilets made chamber pots superfluous: they emitted an odor nuisance after use and they were a source of infection , as they were often only emptied, but not cleaned or disinfected.
The chamber pot is currently used in hospitals as well as old people's and nursing homes. There are bedpans , used today, even commodes, and analog Urinierflaschen . Similar vessels for foreseeable "emergencies" are still common in various areas today, for example for pilots in aircraft without the appropriate equipment and for long-distance drivers. Furthermore, the children's potty (baby potty) is also used for toddlers, as a learning toilet until the child is old enough to use the normal toilet.
Today historical chamber pots are valued collectibles and also joke objects.
Other names
There are numerous paraphrases about the equipment, sometimes shamefully belittling, sometimes coarse in vernacular:
- Upper German is also only used in a pot , which is derived from the `` Potferl '' for children.
- In the older student jargon there is a ship (from Middle High German schif , 'ship, vessel, dishes', compare the water ship in old kitchen stoves), hence the phrase schiffen [to go ].
- Pisspott stands to piss ('urinate') and pott ( pot , French and English 'pot').
- In southern Germany and Austria the dialect name Potschamberl (or similar) is common, a corruption of the French word for chamber pot, the 'pot de chambre' ('room pot)', borrowed from French.
- The name Brunzkachel (from Middle High German brunz-kachele , brunzen 'urinate', tile 'pottery') for a large earthen chamber pot was also common.
- In Eastern Austria there is also the term Scherm ( shards of 'clayware'; of which also have the shards on ).
- In Switzerland one speaks of a night port or port ( port , pottery ', see Hafner Töpfer or oven maker )
- Another name that used to be common in German was Stinktopf .
literature
- Manfred Klauda : History and stories of the chamber pot. Chamber Pot Museum, Munich undated [1986?].
- Isabel Pagalies: The chamber pot. In: Gudrun Schwibbe, Regina Bendix (Hrsg.): Night - ways into other worlds. Schmerse, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-926920-35-1 , pp. 88-92.
- Roy Palmer: The toilet also has its history. Pfriemer-Verlag , Munich 1977, ISBN 3-7906-0067-9 .
- Herbert Rittlinger : On the history of the chamber pot. A little consideration in 10 chapters. Geigy, [Basel 1974].
- Lucinda Lambton: Chambers of delight , Gordon Fraser Verlag, London 1983, ISBN 0860920631 . (English)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Friedrich v. Zglinicki : Uroscopy in the fine arts. An art and medical historical study of the urine examination. Ernst Giebeler, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-921956-24-2 , p. 144 f.
- ^ Friedrich Kluge , Alfred Götze : Etymological dictionary of the German language . 20th ed., Ed. by Walther Mitzka , De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1967; Reprint (“21st unchanged edition”) ibid 1975, ISBN 3-11-005709-3 , p. 648.
- ↑ Dieter Lehmann: Two medical prescription books of the 15th century from the Upper Rhine. Part I: Text and Glossary. Horst Wellm, Pattensen / Han. 1985, now at Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg (= Würzburg medical-historical research , 34), ISBN 3-921456-63-0 , p. 164.