According to archaeological data, there were public toilets in the cities of the Xia and Shang dynasties, and washing tools and toothpicks were unearthed in Yin Ruins, indicating that at least in the Yin Shang era, people bathed and paid attention to personal hygiene was a common thing.

The toilet septic tank in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period was quite deep, so there were examples of people accidentally falling into the toilet and dying. The urban tap water supply system found in East Zhouyang City, Dengfeng, Henan Province, is said to be the earliest tap water supply system in China. Bathrooms dedicated to bathing have appeared at least in the Yin Shang period, and in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the name of the bathroom has appeared. However, they appear to be all domestic, and the public baths do not seem to have been found in archaeological excavations.

In the Qin and Han dynasties, the toilet was called "toilet", "圊", "溷", "Qing", "Xuan", "changing place", etc., from the existing archaeological data, including the royal palace, the government, ordinary houses and even the field barracks, most of the Qin and Han buildings and have toilets. According to the magazine "Archaeology and Antiquities", according to the archaeological excavations at that time, the toilets of the Han Dynasty not only had squatting toilets, but also sat toilets. At that time, private toilets were not only far more numerous than public toilets, but also better equipped than public toilets, in contrast to the Roman ruins that showed that the lower classes had no sanitary facilities in their homes. In the tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Nanyang, not only the two toilets of men and women are side by side, but also one of them has a urinary in front of the pit, and the other does not, and the shape is no different from modern times. As for when public baths appeared in China, not enough archaeological data has been found for a while, but at least in the Tang Dynasty, there were records about public baths, and it is estimated that in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to the gradual integration of ethnic minorities and Han people, and the taboos of ethnic minorities for the body were not as good as those of Han people, public baths should have appeared.

The public baths of the Song Dynasty were very developed, all over the city of Kaifeng, the bathrooms were divided into male and female baths, and the service was very thoughtful, in addition to providing bathing, it also provided services such as back rubbing, nail trimming, massage, etc., as well as tea, wine and fruits. In addition to the capital, large and small towns are also dotted with various public baths.

Public baths in the Yuan Dynasty were very developed, and Marco Polo recorded that people at that time "got up early every day and did not eat until bathing", and there were also medicinal baths. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, China's toilets and bathrooms were more popular, basically a house should be equipped with a toilet at the same time, the public bath in the Ming Dynasty was called a mixed hall, also called "bathhouse", the price of each bath was a penny, equipped with bath beans and other toiletries, at that time it was also called soap, the most famous soap was called "Tianli soap". Public toilets and public baths in the Qing Dynasty were not much different from those of modern times.

In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the novel "Digging a New Pit and Saving Ghosts to Become Rich Lords" by an anonymous person reflects such a side through the construction and management of public toilets in the countryside of Wucheng County, Huzhou:

First, there were many toilets in Qing Dynasty cities. [Mu Taigong went to the city because of this.] Seeing that there were "dung pits" next to the road, I used my brain to do toilet business. In his opinion, "it's better to do a different kind of business"!]

Second, the village toilets are also very standardized. [Mu Taigong invited a bricklayer to "dig three big pits into the three houses in front of the door, and each pit was partitioned by a small wall, and the walls were powdered again, and he was busy with relatives in the city, and asked for countless poems and paintings to be pasted on the wall of this dung house", and he invited a teacher in the town to give this toilet a nondescript name of "Tooth Jue Tang". ]

Third, the toilet business should also be advertised. [Mrs. Mu was afraid that everyone would not know about the toilet he built, so he asked Mr. Jiaoshu to write a hundred and ten "newspapers" and post them in all directions, which read: The Mu family sprays incense in the new pit, and asks the gentlemen from far and near to take care of it, and the house is willing to paste straw paper. ]

Fourth, the toilet also needs to be beautiful and convenient. [Mrs. Mu made the toilet "as pink as a snow cave, more different than a country man's bedroom.] The countryman rubbed his buttocks, "used to straw tiles", and Mrs. Mu put on ready-made "straw paper", plus the toilet he opened, "the wall is green, the most annoying, climbing a new pit, like seeing a scene". Even the female stream came to the dung pit, and Mrs. Mu built a women's toilet again. ]

Fifth, toilet feces can be sold. [At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there was a record of going to Hangzhou to buy dung, and Mu Taigong's sale of dung can be mutually proven: the farmers who farmed the land for a while came to buy it at his house, and each load was worth one penny of silver, and there were more firewood, rice, and oil to exchange. ]

Sixth, the toilet civilization has been formed. ["Those big men and women, just like a little mao, fish run in, keep shuttling and walking", Mu Taigong "got up every day, put straw paper, and didn't even have time to eat". This makes people feel the blowing of the civilized habits of the countryside during the Ming and Qing dynasties. ]

In the Middle Ages of Europe, people did not have the concept of toilets, and the evolution of toilets was from the thatched pit to the thatched house, toilet, toilet, toilet, toilet, from scratch, from private to public, from a single function to a set of physiological metabolism, health adjustment, rest and even aesthetics, commerce, culture and other multi-functions, toilet innovation step by step from civilization to progress.