Bidet

A bidet ( French, [ bi ː de ː ] ) is a low -mounted seat sink. It is used for cleaning the genital and the anus of the feet. Unlike the shower toilet bidet is also installed to the toilet in a bathroom.

Use

Bidets are generally used in order to clean the external genitalia as well as the intimate areas of the skin. In addition, other parts of the body - especially the feet - are easily cleaned. Although the bidet is similar in appearance to the toilet, the comparison with the sink or bathtub is more appropriate. For people with reduced mobility who have problems to use the bathtub or have a fear of slipping in the shower, the bidet is a good way to ensure personal hygiene.

People who are not familiar with the use of the bidet, this mostly confused with a urinal or a toilet. The toilet should be used to get the bowel movement, and to then clean with the bidet before use. Generally, you sit on the bidet, mostly facing the faucet. But this is not absolutely necessary, you can use the bidet the other way around.

Bidets are manufactured in various designs. They usually have a fitting with which (usually warm) water can fill in a porcelain basin. If you put a plug in the drain, the bidet can be filled, or you let the water run off during use. Other bidets have a nozzle is sprayed out of the water.

A bidet may also consist of a nozzle that is mounted on the rear side of the toilet. In this case, its use is limited to the cleaning of the genitals and the anus. Some bidets of this design have two nozzles: a shorter, called " Familiendüse ", which is provided for cleaning around the anus, and a longer ( " Bidetdüse "), which in women 's job to clean the pubic area. Often this type is electronically controlled; some are equipped with heated seats or built-in air dryers which dry the genital and pubic area after cleaning.

Although the use of a bidet to use the hand miteinschließt which touch the genitals and the anus that can be use as a cleaning with toilet paper hygienic. In practice, most people use both: First, the toilet paper for rough cleaning and then the bidet for fine - hygiene.

Bidets with attached to the pelvic floor outlet water have long been banned in Germany as a new installation. With a rare sudden underpressure in the drinking water system, namely the contaminated water in the pool would be drawn by the vacuum into the drinking water system, which would then no longer sterile. This is true in the rest for any other drinking water supply, which is not located above a emergency drain, in any other plumbing related as well.

Bidets are also very useful for the elderly and for people with restricted mobility or with hemorrhoids.

Dissemination

Bidets are especially in southern Europe spread (especially France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal), in Turkey, the Arab countries and in Latin America ( here are Brazil, to name but especially Argentina and Uruguay, where bidets in about 90 % of all households are present), but also in a special form in Japan and some other Asian countries. In Finland and Egypt Although bidets are not widespread, but there is near almost every toilet a special water hose, which performs the same function. In Austria and Switzerland, they are more common than in neighboring Germany.

In Japan, in 1980 presented " paperless toilet ". It consists of a combination of toilet and bidet and dried after use also the anus and the genitals. These bidet - toilets, ( to conventional toilets convert simple) along with special toilet seats, where the Bidetdüse is built are exported to many countries.

Residents of countries in which hardly found bidets in private homes are ( Germany or the UK, for example) are often unfamiliar with bidets and usually have no idea how they are used, they should take on such trips abroad.

According to a French survey of 1995, the bidet in Italy is most frequently used (97%), followed by Portugal in second place ( 92 %) and France third ( 42%). The rarest, the bidet in Germany (6% ) and the UK is used ( 3%).

History

Bidet was 400 years ago, the French word for " small horse " - trot in Old French means bider. This curious etymology came from the fact that early forms of bidets were mounted on a frame and you had to ascend in use.

The bidet appears to be 17th century or early 18th century, an invention of French furniture makers in the late. There is no known exact date or the name of the inventor. The earliest literary reference of a bidet can be specified with the year 1710. Roberto Zapperi called as the earliest written reference to the bidet 1726 and as the source of the memoirs of the French Foreign Minister René Louis d' Argenson. The earliest known pictorial representation of a bidet is the painting La Toilette intimate by François Boucher in 1741, which today is in the Museum in Madrid. One of the biggest advocates of the bidet was the French ambassador in Venice and Rome François -Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, through which the bidet in Italy found its way.

In 1900 migrated the bidet and the chamber pot from the bedroom to the bathroom due to the advanced plumbing technology of the Victorian era.

Until the invention of the contraceptive pill, the bidet has been used for contraception.