“Up until the 18th century, people in major cities like LONDON and NEW YORK relieved themselves in CHAMBER POTS- then dumped the WASTE into the STREET.”

National Geographic 5,000 Awesome Facts, fact #4 on toilets

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a chamber pot is “a bowl kept in a bedroom and used as a toilet at night. (www.merriamwebster.com). 

A chamber pot, as described by wordhippo.com says it’s a noun, and a bedroom vessel used for urination and defecation, also called a “commode”, a “slop basin”, “loo”, “slop jar”, and a “thunder mug“.

The chamber pot could be disguised as a close stool, or some sort of chair and would be stored in a cabinet with doors to hide it. If the house did not have cabinets then they most likely were hid underneath the bed. 

Wikipedia describes one chamber pot as “The Crabfish“, ” a 17th-century folk song about what is most likely a common lobster, stored in a chamber pot by an unwise fisherman. The moral of the song is that one should look into a chamber pot before using it.”

After using the chamber pot it would be taken outside and thrown into a cesspool or a dung heap and be brought back inside to wash out. Open gutters and rain would wash away the excrement. This continued until the mid 19th century. 

Other options were to take a trip to the outhouse, which are still available to this day.

Relationships between excrement and disease were not recognized back then. 

A chamber pot was found in some of the Titanic wreckage;

Thankfully modern plumbing is available to most cities in the 21st century, but the chamber pot can be an alternative to turn to when the going gets tough.