The Cost of Human Comfort

The Cost of Human Comfort

The difference between caveman and cushy is only a matter of a few dollars, plus a few brilliant inventors who brought the niceties of life right to us. Here’s a brief history of a few things we don’t realize how hard it would be to live without.

Toothpaste

Hardly anyone thinks twice about how great it is to have a way to keep your teeth clean and pain-free. But, toothpaste does just that. Can you imagine going your whole life without brushing?

Invented in the 1700s, toothpaste was originally made from burnt bread or from resin and cinnamon. Toothpaste as we know it is made of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Toothpaste in a tube as we have it today was invented by Dr. Washington Sheffield in 1892, and it is now one of the most common household items anywhere.

Cost of this comfort: $3 – $5 per tube

Air Conditioning

Sit down in a car without air conditioning and you’ll hear complaint after complaint. AC has become such a common creature comfort that it’s often just expected rather than sincerely appreciated. Could you go without air conditioning in your house during the summer?

The first modern AC was invented by Willis Haviland in 1902 in order to control temperature in a printing plant. Before that, however, temperature control was achieved by liquefying and evaporating ammonia, adding salt to water or making large amounts of ice.

The earliest we know of air conditioning was in the 2^nd century when Chinese inventor Ding Huan made a manually-powered rotary fan that was 10 feet in diameter. AC has come a long way since then.

Cost of this comfort: Just pennies per hour

Contact Lenses

Even with eyeglasses available, correcting bad vision has never been more convenient than with contacts. Who would have thought you could put a piece of glass in your eye? It’s weird, but it’s nice, and we usually don’t give it a second thought.

The idea of contact lenses is attributed first to Leonardo da Vinci, although he proposed his idea as an experiment in learning about the eye and not for vision correction.

The first tolerable contacts were made of hard glass in 1887, and subsequently evolved. Anyone who has worn hard contacts knows how uncomfortable these can be. Soft contacts made of hydrogel were invented by Czech chemists Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav Lim in 1959. Nearly 40 million people in the U.S. wear soft contact lenses.

Cost of this comfort: As little as $10

Painkillers

Can you imagine a world without pain medicine? Whenever a caveman got stepped on by a woolly mammoth, he just took it. Nowadays, the cure to a pesky headache, for example, is only a couple hundreds milligrams away.

Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was invented in 1853 by French chemist Charles Frederic Gerhardt. By 1899, Bayer had patented aspirin and was selling it around the world. Acetaminophen (used in Tylenol) was introduced in 1956 and ibuprofen came to market in 1969. Today, millions of people enjoy the benefits of a variety of painkillers that are available at any corner store.

Cost of this comfort: A few cents per headache

Washing machines

When was the last time you did your laundry in a stream, using rocks to beat the dirt out? That’s what we thought…

Various methods have been used throughout history to aid in washing clothing, but until around 1900 it was all basically done manually. At the beginning of the 20^th century, Louis Goldenberg of New Brunswick, New Jersey, invented the electric washing machine while working for the Ford Motor Company.

Spin dryers were introduced in the 1930s, and the art of beating clothes together in the river has been lost ever since.

Cost of this comfort: As little as $200, or a handful of quarters per wash

Cell Phones

The ability to contact anyone from virtually anywhere, no matter how remote, is as ubiquitous as it is priceless. You may not know this, but before cellular phones they had these things called “landlines.” And before that? No one remembers.

The idea of a mobile phone has existed since the birth of the telephone, but the first invention of an actual mobile phone is attributed to Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973. Using a large, heavy brick of a portable phone, Cooper made the first call on a mobile phone to his rival at Bell Labs. Dr. Joel S. Engel.

Japan was the birthplace to the first citywide cellular network in 1979, and in 1983 the first commercial mobile phone in the U.S. was approved by the FCC. Today, cell phones are nearly as small as credit cards, contain entire volumes of contact information, and have the ability to induce severe panic when lost.

Cost of this comfort: As low as $40 a month

Flushable Toilets

Perhaps the item that is most often taken for granted, this baby gives us comfort that money can’t buy.

A precursor to the modern flush toilet was designed by John Harington in 1596. Over the next few hundred years, English inventors “toyed” with the toilet, introducing different mechanisms that eventually led to the modern toilets we have today.

Cost of this comfort: From $200

Other Human Comforts

Depending on who you are, you probably can’t live without most of these niceties either:

Microwave ovens were invented in 1945. Cost: Under $100

Remote controls were invented in the early 1900s. Cost: $8+

Sneakers emerged after the vulcanization of rubber was discovered in 1839. Cost: $20 -$100 per pair

Dishwashers with permanent plumbing were invented in 1924 by William Howard Livens. Cost $200+

Tampons were invented by Dr. Earle Haas in 1931. Cost: <$6

Plastic cling wrap was invented in 1953. Cost: <$3

When it comes down to it, with these creature comforts, there really are no price tags.