You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Lots of us are spending more time these days at home,

including in our bathrooms. Stay with me here.

The next time you go to take a trip to the Lou, look around,

because Elizabeth Eukoe, a bioethicist and journalist,

wants you to know that a lot of the things in our bathrooms

are designed the way they are, in part, because of infectious disease.

The sink, the toilet, the bathtub, the toothbrush holder.

Well, didn't expect that one.

Towel racks, the floor. I have white tile floor and white tiles in the wall.

So pretty much you're telling me like almost everything in the bathroom.

All of the above, yes.

Elizabeth wrote about this in a story for City Lab.

Tuberculosis, cholera, the flu.

As our understanding of these diseases evolved,

how they spread the role, hygiene plays and preventing them,

so did the American bathroom.

And when we realized that built architecture and design

could have some sort of influence on our health,

that became something that people wanted to then adopt within their own homes.

I'm Maddie Sifaya. Today on the show, we present a brief toilet timeline.

And we talk about how the current pandemic could bring about a new wave

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