Found it! [See previous post.]
I had done a search for Zinsser’s book, Rats, Lice and History, many weeks ago, and come up dry (how many weeks?).
But a more careful search in Google Books turned up a copy of most of the text, from Read Books — and in that edition, appearing to have been published in London*, there is a page 285!
On that page 285, there is the quote cited, claiming that the bathtub did not come to America until about 1840.
The quote is found in chapter XVI, in the first section, a couple of paragraphs prior to the second section — page 217 in the editions of the book I have.
So, the Hoax Museum is right in saying Zinsser was hoaxed, too. Zinsser’s book appeared first in 1935, with plenty of time for Mencken’s 1917 hoax to have spread into sources Zinsser trusted.
Even the best can be taken in by a hoax crafted well enough, or on a subject obscure enough.
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* RATS, LICE, AND HISTORY, Being a Study in Biography, which, after Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, Deals with the Life History of TYPHUS FEVER. Also known, at various stages of its Adventurous Career, as Morbus pulicaris (Cardanus, 1545); Tabardiglio y puntos (DeToro, 1574); Pin fas Febris pur purea epidemica (Coyttarus, 1578); Febris quam lenticulas vel puncticulas vocant (Fracastorius, 1546); Morbus hungaricus; La Pourpre; Pipercorn; Febris petechialis vera; Febris maligna pestilens; Febris putrida et maligna; Typhus carcerorum; Jayl Fever; Fiévre des hôspitaux; Pestis bellica; Morbus castrensis; Famine Fever; Irish Ague; Typhus exanthematicus; Faulfieber Hauptkrankheit; Pcstartigc Bräune; Exanthematisches Nervenfieber, and so forth, and so forth. By HANS ZINSSER; LONDON, GEORGE ROUTLEDGE, BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Glad to see I was cleared in your investigation!
To be honest, I didn’t check every one of McDougall’s references. I’m familiar enough with McDougall’s work to know that he was a very careful researcher. So I just trusted he had it right.
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I found it at Border’s recently in a new version — up to then, the only ones I had seen were used. I’ll wager you can get it cheap either way.
Zinsser provides no notes to that particular little snippet, though he phrases it unusually. It’s in a section where he notes that advances in political freedom, art and the sciences, didn’t necessarily result in advances in hygiene and public health. In this paragraph, he talks about the disposal of human waste — generally tossed out the window, even in cities — and how it affected civilization. I’ll highlight a key part:
The bolded part is right out of Mencken’s hoax.
My guess is that Zinsser could have found that “fact” in several different places, and having probably seen it in at least two places, assumed it was solid information.
Was it Kin Hubbard who said, “What gets us into trouble ain’t what we don’t know; it’s what we know, that isn’t so?”
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I am curious about that book – I should pick it up. But how did he get hoaxed? Where did he pick it up? Or was it so pervasive that it is impossible to trace back?
Jonathan
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[…] Hoaxes on hoaxes: Bathtub hoax debunkers start a new hoax? [If you’re interested in the hoax aspect, see this update post.] […]
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