Excerpt:
There is disagreement over who was the inventor of the modern flush toilet, and flushing out the truth is not easy. Many give credit to THOMAS CRAPPER (1837-1910), an English sanitary engineer, for inventing the valve~and~siphon arangement that made our modern toilet possible. Then there are others who maintain that our hero was a nameless MINOAN (a native of ancient Crete) who lived some 4,000 years ago. And then there are those who give the credit to ALEXANDER CUMMING who patented a flushing device in 1775.