Units of paper quantity Simon Winchester, in "The Surgeon of Crowthorne", cites a specific number, defining quire as "a booklet eight pages thick." Several European words for quire keep the meaning of "book of paper": Ger. "Buch von Papier", Dan. "bog papir", Du. "bock papier". In blankbook binding, "quire" is a term indicating 80 pages. A ream of paper is a quantity of sheets of the same size and quality. International standards organizations define the ream as 500 identical sheets. This ream of 500 sheets (20 quires of 25 sheets) is also known as a 'long' ream, and is gradually replacing the old value
Toilet paper human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China. In 589 AD the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote about the use of toilet paper: During the later Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), an Arab traveller to China in the year 851 AD remarked: During the early 14th century, it was recorded that in modern-day Zhejiang province alone there was an annual manufacturing of toilet paper amounting to ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper each. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), it was recorded in 1393 that an annual supply of 720,000 sheets