Toilet paper was invented by the Chinese and later improved by the English and Americans.
The first mentions of the use of paper as a toilet accessory date back to China, where paper itself was invented.
In the early 14th century, 10 million packages of toilet paper were produced in the modern province of Zhejiang, each containing between 1,000 and 10,000 sheets. Chronicles from the Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644) mention that in 1393, 720,000 sheets were made for the needs of the imperial court.
Toilet paper appeared in Europe and America much later. In 1857, American Joseph Gayetty began producing hygienic wipes infused with aloe juice, which were used, in particular, for treating hemorrhoids.
The first toilet paper in rolls began to be produced in the United Kingdom around 1880. However, initially, they did not have perforations for easy tearing of sheets, so the roll holder was equipped with a sharp edge. The technology for producing perforated paper that could be easily torn was patented in 1871 by American Seth Wheeler, but he only started his production in the mid-1880s.
