From the moment Ron Shaoul 2)took it upon himself to investigate the practice of reading on the toilet, 3)scouring medical literature and turning up nothing 4)of note as to its public health consequences, the situation became clear that here, on his hands, was a big job.
Shaoul, who published his study in 2009, 5)lamented that toilet reading was 6)woefully neglected by scientists, considering the habit probably dated back to the emergence of printed books. He 7)mustered some colleagues, drew up a questionnaire and had hundreds of people of all shapes and sizes complete it. What resulted was perhaps the most scientific attempt yet to shine light on a habit that rustles unseen behind closed doors.
The 8)anonymous author of The Life of St. Gregory couldn’t help but notice that the toilet of the middle ages, high up in a castle 9)turret, offered the perfect 10)solitude for “11)uninterrupted reading”; 12)Lord Chesterfield also 13)saluted the benefits, recounting the tale of a man who used his time wisely in the “necessary house” to work his way through 14)Horace. This was but the beginning.
No writer owned the 15)arena of toilet reading more than 16)Henry Miller. He read truly great books on the lavatory, and maintained that some, Ulysses for instance, could not be fully appreciated elsewhere.
From a medical 17)standpoint, there are plenty of questions to ask of toilet reading. Most can be 18)worded in vague, 19)euphemistic terms that convey the 20)gist without 21)delving into 22)coprological detail. Does reading material become irreversibly infused with nasty 23)contaminants when carried into the toilet? How long can unpleasant 24)microbes live on 25)glossy magazine covers or, for that matter, the pages of a newspaper? And what does the straightforward act of reading on the toilet do for 26)bowel movements.
Val Curtis, director of the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is a self-confessed toilet reader. There is, she says, a theoretical risk. To be 27)blunt, 28)bugs in your 29)poo can get on your hands, be 30)transferred to your reading material, and on to the hands of some other unfortunate. That risk is quite slim, though. “The important thing is to wash your hands with soap after using the loo to get the bugs off,” Curtis says.
Microbes don’t 31)fare too well on 32)absorbent surfaces, and might survive only minutes on newspaper. But plastic book covers and those shiny, smooth surfaces of iPhones and iPads are more 33)accommodating, and it’s likely bugs can live on those for hours. A recent study by Curtis suggests that in Britain one in six mobile phones is 34)contaminated with 35)faecal matter, largely because people fail to wash their hands after going to the toilet.
Shaoul, who works at the Bnai Zion Medical Centre in Haifa, Israel, agrees that there is little to fear from unpleasant bugs when reading in the toilet. Most people who 36)indulge in the habit—his questionnaire pointed to more men and more educated, whitecollar workers—do so at home or at work with their own material, rather than in random, 37) excrement-38)spattered lavatories.
More interesting to Shaoul is whether the simple act of reading on the toilet has an impact on bowel movements. “We thought sitting and reading while you were on the toilet might be relaxing and make things go better,” Shaoul says. “We thought we might cure the world of 39)constipation with our research.”
Shaoul cast his net wide. He received completed questionnaires from 499 men and women, aged 18 to over 65—some unemployed or students, others builders and academics; some from rural villages, others from the city. More than half of the men (64%) and 41% of the women confessed to being regular toilet readers. More often than not, they described their reading material as “whatever is around.” In practice, this usually meant newspapers.
It 40)transpires that toilet readers spend more time on the loo and consider themselves less constipated than non-toilet readers, but other measures of their 41)defecation habits show the two groups hardly differ. Shaoul’s work hints that toilet readers suffer more 42)hemorrhoids—something that made for 43)cautionary news stories around the world—but the effect is 44)negligible.
Finally, Shaoul concluded that reading on the toilet is widespread, 45)alleviates boredom, and is ultimately harmless. This 46)rings true to Curtis. “I use it as distraction therapy. I don’t particularly want to think about 47)crapping.”
自从开始着手调查人们在厕所里阅读这一习惯时起，罗恩·绍乌尔找遍了医学文献，至今仍未发现这一习惯对公共卫生有何重大影响。显然，在他手头上的是一项艰巨的任务。
2009年，绍乌尔出版了他的研究，细说起来，厕所阅读这种习惯可以追溯到印刷书籍出现的初期。他对这种习惯不幸地被科学家们所忽视表示遗憾。他召集了一些同事，草拟了一份调查问卷，找来数百个体型各异的人来填写。其结论也许是最科学的一次尝试，可以让我们了解紧闭的门后那看不见的习惯。
《圣·格雷戈里的生活》一书的匿名作者不禁注意到，中世纪的厕所，位处城堡角楼的高处，给“无干扰的阅读”提供了完美的隐秘之地；查斯特菲尔德勋爵也对这种好处赞叹不已，重述了一个男人如何在“内需之室”里明智地利用时间，细读大诗人贺拉斯的大作。这仅仅是开始而已。
没有任何作家比亨利·米勒更充分地利用厕所进行阅读了。他在厕所里阅读了真正伟大的书籍，并且坚称如《尤利西斯》等一些作品，在其他地方是不能被这样尽兴地拜读的。
从医学角度来看，有很多关于厕所阅读的问题需要被提出。大部分是模糊、委婉的措辞，只是传达要旨，而不深究细节。阅读材料被带进厕所之后是否会不可避免地沾染上污物？令人讨厌的细菌会在光面杂志或者报纸上存活多久？在厕所里阅读这种简单直接的行为会对排便有何影响？
瓦尔·柯蒂斯是伦敦卫生及热带医学学校卫生中心的主任，也自 认是一个厕所阅读者。她说，这种习惯理论上存在风险。坦白来说，粪便中的细菌可能沾到你的手上，转移到你的阅读材料上，然后传到其他倒霉的人手上。不过，这种几率极微。“切记要在便后用肥皂洗手，洗走细菌，”柯蒂斯说。
微生物在可吸收的表面不易存活，在报纸上可能只能存活几分钟。但塑料的书本封面，以及iPhone和iPad的光滑表面，有利于微生物的生长，细菌能在这些东西上存活数小时。柯蒂斯最近的一项研究指出，在英国，六分之一的手机被排泄物污染，很大部分是因为人们如厕后没有洗手。
在以色列海法的Bnai Zion医学中心工作的绍乌尔认同，无需担心在厕所阅读时会有令人讨厌的细菌。大部分沉溺于这种习惯的人——他的调查问卷显示出越来越多的男士和受教育的白领——会在家里或者公司如厕时阅读自己的书籍，而不是在随便哪个溅满排泄物的茅厕里阅读。
对绍乌尔来说，更有趣的是这种在厕所里阅读的简单行为对排便 会不会有影响。“我们认为在你上厕所时一边坐着一边阅读会让人放松，排便更顺畅，”绍乌尔说，“我们认为通过这次研究也许可以治愈大家的便秘问题。”
绍乌尔把网撒得很广。他收到年龄介于18岁到65岁以上的499名男女完成的调查问卷——有些是失业人士或者学生，有些是一些施工人员及专业学者；有些来自农村，有些来自城市。超过一半（64%）的男性以及41%的女性承认经常在上厕所时阅读。通常，他们形容自己的阅读材料是“找到什么就看什么”。事实上，这通常指的是报纸。
调查显示，厕所阅读者花更多时间在排便上，也认为自己比非厕所阅读者出现便秘的情况要少，但是他们排便习惯的其他指标显示这两种人群几乎没有什么不同。绍乌尔的研究指出，厕所阅读者更经常被痔疮问题所困扰——这给全球的人们敲响了警钟——但影响却微乎其微。
最后，绍乌尔得出结论：在厕所里阅读的现象很普遍，可以缓解无聊，基本无害。这对柯蒂斯而言也是如此。“我利用它来分散注意力。我不希望自己只想着排泄。”