Flush Toilet

A flush toilet is a toilet that disposes of human waste by collecting it in a bowl and using the force of water to carry it through a drainpipe to a sewer or septic system. No single inventor can be credited: the English courtier Sir John Harington published a description of an early flushing toilet design in 1596, the Scottish mechanic Alexander Cumming patented the S-shaped water trap, or siphon, still used to seal toilets against sewer odors, in 1775, and the English inventor Joseph Bramah patented what is often considered the first practical, non-manual flush toilet mechanism in 1778, with the device evolving gradually through further refinement during the Industrial Revolution rather than emerging complete from any one of these steps.