See a set of the Daintette vaginal
douche, with pamphlets, etc., 1928-29?, U.S.A.
"Faultless
Feminine Syringe," No. 240, made by the Faultless Rubber Company,
Ashland, Ohio, U.S.A., perhaps from the 1960s or 1970s.
 
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Portable bidet (Paris, France, 1928)
A bidet has allowed men and women since possibly the Crusades (11th
to the 13th centuries) to wash feet, hair, beards, genitals and perineum.
The bather usually rides it like a pony; pony is what the word meant in the French of 400
or so years ago.
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After taking off the lid, you can see how you would ride
this bidet, at left, in the 1911 German guide
for housewives Die Frau als Hausärztin (The Woman as Home Physician)
by A. Fischer-Dückelman. Here's what the author says about washing
during menstruation (my translation):
Every woman should be able to wash her genitals and the
neighboring region with lukewarm water in order to get rid of adhering
blood, which decomposes quickly, and unpleasant secretions.
The best way to do this is over a bidet by sitting with more or less separated
legs and throwing water onto the genitals.
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A bidet of today - left,
with a toilet in the background, from the interesting site The
Virtual Baguette, which apprently no longer deals with bidets - is made
of porcelain, mounted in a bathroom next to a toilet, and features a jet
of water squirting the genitals and between the buttocks. Although I believe
the French have been the main users of the bidet, today one can buy them
for bathrooms in at least North America and Europe, although American bidets
are often devices mounted on toilets, removed after use.
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The beautiful bidet featured here, below,
seems to be made of oak, heavy enough to withstand water and usage, and
metal painted a gold color. There are no fancy jets of water; the user poured
water over her genitals - the old-fashioned way.
The donor (see below) said it belonged to her French mother, who bought
it in Paris in 1928. Although heavy (about 31 pounds, about 14 kilos), it
is portable, and collapses into a flat box-like form (second picture, below).
I suspect the original owner, her mother, a wealthy woman from Nice, would
have had servants carry it; it was a lot for your MUM to carry on the subway.
A metal plate under the right "wing" (see the wing here)
reads
Siege - MATHIEU
B[?] S.G.D.G
DIPLôME D'HONNEUR
10, Rue Lacuée PARIS
[Mr. F. Reisner, of Bad Homburg, Germany, publisher of The German Plumbing
& Sanitaryware Suppliers Guide, e-mailed the museum in November 2000,
translating the plate as follows:
Bté. SGDG means "patented." Breveté
Sans Garantie du Gouvernement means "Patented without State Guarantee."
Name of the street in Paris is wrong (probably difficult to read). Diplôme
d'Honneur means that the inventor has received some distinction, for instance,
at the occasion of a World Fair or Inventors' Fairs (the most famous French
Inventors Fair is called "Concours Lépine" - Lépine
was in the last century a prefecture of Paris).
A woman born in France, living in the Washington, D.C., U.S.A., area, generously
donated it to this museum in September of 1999 after having read about MUM
in the Washington Post newspaper
in 1995. Because of the war, she barely escaped France in 1939 with her
mother and sister, leaving everything behind with friends and neighbors.
After the war, she visited France to retrieve as many of the family's possessions
as she could; some folks didn't want to give them to her, but she rescued
the bidet, among other things.
After visiting this gentlelady, I took the bidet home on the subway,
but not until after the donor insisted on wrapping it up in a black plastic
garbage bag to protect it from the eyes of my fellow passengers. But I doubt
they would have guessed what it was - I would have been glad to tell them
had they asked, and start a general discussion in the car - since bidets
are uncommon in America, but widely known to flourish in France.
And Americans have that divided attitude about France: she's (a telling
pronoun) the source of taste and style, which we Puritans can somewhat accept,
and the pit of naughtiness - a duality wonderfully exemplified by the bidet
you see below.
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With legs extended, the folded-up bidet looks like a piano
bench and is just slightly smaller. This may have helped the traveling woman
conceal it from visitors to her room, or simply made it look nice to the
woman who could afford it - or both. Or something else.
(All photos by MUM director Harry Finley)
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Meds (also the name of the first Modess
tampon), at right, is one of a litter
of five interns at the museum. (Can the Smithsonian claim a litter of
interns?) She is about to inspect the underside of the bidet, facing us,
but, always the professional, she awaits a "go-ahead" sign from
the photographer, the MUM director, before sniffing. Yeah, right. (Meds
died of lymphoma in 2006.)
Notice the drain extending from the basin, the cylindrical,
bluish object in the center (the metal is actually silver gray). I wonder
if a drainage hose attached to it.
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© 1999 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner or medium without
written permission of the author. Please report suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org
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