The ability to use fire and the invention of the wheel are often credited as two of the oldest discoveries of humanity; another ancient discovery, less commented upon, is the use of cascading water to cleanse the body, an experience known as the shower. Ancient Greek pottery depicts group shower rooms, while today’s showers are much more private affairs, and over the years a number of different varieties of showers have come into existence. Today, the most common forms of private or domestic showers have remained largely unchanged since the latter half of the 19th century. These two types are the stall shower and a combination of a shower/bathtub.

Various types of showers include the air shower, wherein high pressure air is used to blow away extra dust particles from the personnel in clean rooms. There’s the electric shower, which is a shower stall device that heats the shower water with electric power. In the military, there’s the field shower, used by military forces and governments all over the world. It’s used to remove potentially lethal weapons, such as chemicals, biological agents and radioactive material, from a soldier’s body. There’s the steam shower , which employs a humidifying steam generator to bathe the person in steam, similar to a sauna. There’s also the Vichy shower, where large amounts of warm water are poured over a patron of a spa while the patron lies in a shallow but wet bed (much like a massage table). And there’s the Roman shower, which is a shower type designed without needing a door or curtain.

All of these variations of showering, created for specific purposes, from emergency situations to relaxing settings, suggest how far we’ve come from days of the fire and the wheel.

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