| abstract | - Fecal matter has, of course, been extant since animals first roamed the earth hundreds of years ago. From the microscopic remnants left by protozoa to the house-sized feces left by dinosaurs during the Jurassic era, dumps have been important events for the survival of creatures, keeping them regular and giving them something at which to laugh when an unsuspecting creature happens to not pay attention to where they are going and step right into a pile of it. Over time, as human beings evolved, scat, its uses, and the discussion of it became more refined. For example, the Ancient Greeks, realizing the full potential of the potent aroma coming from scat, attempted to make it a great weapon during their wars with Sparta. Unfortunately, without any sort of catapults or other devices, the only way to use the scat was with their bare hands. While the scat would work when it hit the Spartan armies (causing them to go into spasms from the stench), the far-and-few-between hits ultimately led to the Greeks losing to the Spartans on a regular basis. Warriors in Ancient Rome were, however, able to use the catapults as a more logical way of deploying the dung, though they were more concerned with discussing its "scatness," as is evident in this excerpt from Cicero's work The Scatpublic: “...but is it not the purpose of the scat to be more than just that which it is? With such powerful potency and ability to elevate mankind's sensation of odor, why, then, would it not make sense take in all the aura that the item has surrounding it? Surely, anything that one were to believe stinks to high heaven must certainly open a pathway to be closer to the gods.” ~ Cicero (from "The Scatpublic") While the scat, like many other things, reverted back to no more than scat during the Dark Ages (350-1450), it became used much more during the Renaissance, especially with the formations of indoor plumbing allowing for it to be found and studied much more easily. This continued through the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, there still had been no formalized study. People throughout the century did attempt to formalize the study, but there was always some sort of distractor. For example:
* David D. Docrapper (1893-1918) attempted to start something while at Harvard, but was drafted into World War I and (ironically) killed when he caught fire from a flamethrower aimed at his rear while farting.
* Haim Dodowitz (1890-1972) was close to starting a field of study in Germany, but the rise of Adolf Hitler in the early 1930s led to Dodowitz abandoning his studies in Berlin and fleeing to Switzerland. When he returned in 1946, he found all his work had been destroyed, and he decided to abandon it.
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