wow that's a pretty cool fact

This certainly sparked my interest in the subject, I'll search for books about this, a documentary on the history of human waste management would not be pleasant to watch for me at least lol

I mean the answer is much more complex than I am capable of putting into words, but remember romans had very adequate waste management, and native people in the americas never had a human waste issue like the europeans.

The modern toilet is a fairly new invention, but so is the whole notion of privacy, medieval people in general did not expect nor wished for complete privacy, wealthy or not.

It is also worth mentioning that the notion of cleanliness varied greatly from our modern understanding, people were more concerned about odors and "humors" and bacteria and infectious diseases were not properlly understood.

I believe it all led to mismanadgement. I believe the catholic church did play a role with their concept that bathing was bad, and the whole exarcerbated villification of the human body in general.

I'm sorry I don't have a definitive answer but I hope I may have beem able to present a few points of consideration.

I am not fully certain but I'll argue that the american colonies where profitable due to the taxes that the crown charged from them (the spark of the revolution was raised taxes after all), I would also think that any colony trying to be independent would be a serious issue, if for no other reason thay it could be an incentive for other (and more valuable) colonies to revolt if they were sucessful

thank you, I am curious to know if it has always been common practice in europe or if it spread from a certain time period, did the normans pierce their ears? the anglo-saxons? the scandinavians? I have no idea, but the thought that it was a non-gendered practice is very interesting from a modern perspective

I always wondered when did european women start piercing their ears for the use of earrings. Wasn't it a dangerous practice given that it could easily become infected?

many women up until the 20th century would simply bleed into petticoats. Yes rags were very common as well, how often these were changed depended on the intensity of the mesntrual flow. Cloth could be held up against the body using special "girdles" and in the victorian era special "sanitary aprons" (basically waterproof/resistant petticoats) could be used as well