Modern technology has paved the way for the widespread availability of three-ply toilet paper, but that hasn't always been the case.

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From newspaper squares and torn phone book pages hanging on a bail in the outhouse, to tracing paper in the school toilet block, to even waxed apple wrappers — the world has been flush with innovative alternatives to toilet paper for centuries.

"We consider it indispensable," said UK writer Richard Smyth, author of Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper.

"But obviously for thousands of years, people have lived happily without it.

"Now we use it and we panic when we can't get hold of it."

Although the invention of paper for hygiene has been recorded in China as early as the 6th century AD, Smyth said the origin of modern-day toilet roll could be attributed to one man — an American named Joseph Gayetty.

He sold packages of flat sheets infused with aloe as Gayetty's Medicated Paper back in 1857, in a market that was already full of newspapers, almanacs and magazines.

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"He came up with the idea that printers ink caused haemorrhoids, which was nonsense, but enabled him to launch this product on the world and it's still with us today," he said.

Before newspapers, rocks, grass, moss, shells and even broken pottery was used as an instrument to wipe.

It all depended on what a person had to hand.

The mechanism of wiping one's bottom took on a decidedly different shape in ancient Rome.

One text by Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger in the 1st century AD documented the use of a sea sponge attached to a stick, used for posterior hygiene in latrines.

Evidence for using the sponge stick is scarcely recorded, but is detailed in Seneca the Younger's story of the plight of a German gladiator in Rome before he fought against a wild animal.

"He said he needed to go to the loo, and so they let him go off to the loo — Seneca says it was the only chance he could get to be on his own," said Professor Tim Parkin, The Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair of Classics at the University of Melbourne.

"He committed suicide by stuffing the sponge on a stick down his throat, so that he would die rather than have to go into the arena and fight a wild animal.

"It is horrific, but clearly the toilets had these sponges in them."

Professor Parkin said it was almost certain that most Roman people had their own sponge sticks.

Although modern-day toilet paper was invented in the United States in 1857, the introduction of toilet paper to Australia came decades later and coincided with the building of city sewers.

Adelaide had a drainage system by 1885, while Sydney's was only partially complete by 1876.

Melbourne did not gain a sewage system until 1890.

Before sewers were built, just about anything was thrown in a system of cesspits, which would overflow when it rained and seep into groundwater.

"It was when we started flushing that you couldn't necessarily throw rags, leaves and newspaper down the toilet anymore," said Dr Sarah Hayes, senior research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.

Dr Hayes has researched the transition from cesspits, to night-pans, to sewers in Melbourne and said toilet paper and hygiene is an area that was seldom documented.

"The Melbourne City Council was debating the health hazards of cesspits and the different options that were available, there was lots of campaigning, lots of media press about this, but we haven't found a single mention about how people were wiping."

Dr Hayes said toilet paper used to be sold from behind the counter at chemists — although it was advertised as an improvement in hygiene, there was an element of embarrassment over being seen purchasing it.

"It's not something we really worry about anymore, but I think there probably was a social stigma about [toilet paper] at the time, but it is a funny one because it would only be rich people who would have been able to afford it," she said.

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