Eli5 How did travelers/crusaders in medieval times get a clean and consistent source of water
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I’d like to mention that you make soup by boiling water, and soup is kind of like water but tasty.
So having clean boiled soup can kind of count as clean water. They didn’t understand it very well perhaps, but it’s a thing.
Short answer they didn‘t… that‘s why WW1 was the first war in human history where more soldiers died by the hand of the enemy than illnesses starvation and thirst
Edit: since there is a lot of disagreement:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Here it says 7-8 million combat related deaths
2-3 million deaths by accidents and disease
As a student of medieval history and times, I can honestly say that every one of us would be absolutely horrified if we actually went back in time and saw the horrendous, filthy, diseased food and drink that the average medieval person imbibed. Never mind the disgusting filth everywhere from human waste. E-coli infections would have been commonplace, along with dysentery and general bacterial infestations. Never mind the vermin…lice, bedbugs, flies. People bathed seldom, even among the wealthy, almost never among the peasants. Essentially, we would pass out from the smells alone. And then we would die of some horrible infection or disease that could have been treated with a 3 day regimen of Keflex.
Like many said they didn’t. From a human health perspective even those who were not falling ill and/or dying, most of those folks were not “healthy” as you envisage it today. For example it is quite likely they were all infected by parasites which wasn’t that uncommon at that time. Where did they get those? Bad water, food, exposure to other infected people. Important to note they probably had these before they even started the campaign but certainly could have picked up more along the way. Others have mentioned the bacterial infections that killed some of them, all par for the course when the water and food sources were not clean.
People mentioned beer and wine, but I haven’t seen anything about food. Stews and soups used to be way more popular for meals, along with gruel, etc. You can hydrate from your food to, or at least get enough water that you don’t need much additional water. Also Tea has to be boiled. Maybe it was blind luck to an extent.
Read Grunt by Mary Roach.
Up until very recently, Armies lost most of their men to illness.
Basically, the answer is “they didn’t”
Homo sapiens is a species that is ok to defecate where it lives.
Early humans used fermentation (ie beer) to purify their drinking water, although they probably didn’t know why it purified the water, and those who didn’t drink beer probably didn’t realise the health benefits of drinking purified water (via fermentation, which killed bacterium)
The discovery of coffee (and tea? – circa 1600’s), which involves boiling water, purified the water, but again – people who drank coffee didn’t realise at the time that was one of the reasons that they lived a longer life than non -coffee drinkers, because an understanding of microbes and bacteria was some centuries away.
Unless you’re in a desert you can generally walk down hill until you come across a stream or river.
flowing clear water is generally safe to drink as long as it isn’t down stream from a heard of livestock.
I’ll give some unusual justifications.
1.The majority of the lower population lived near lakes and rivers.
2.You will be aware of the dangers posed by washing power if you investigate the issue.
3.In the past, some areas’ water was extremely filthy.Some parts used to SHIT into water, while others didn’t and were used as fertilizer for farming.
4.The availability of tasteless or clean water was very high.Imagine a world devoid of factories and industries; additionally, there was a problem with shitting and drowning in water, so they established solid guidelines.This is how we evolved. Water that tastes bad is bad water.Good generalization.
5.We relied on taste to determine the quality of the water, and since there was no scientific method for determining quality, many people died as a result of drinking water of such “good quality.”
6.Most of the time, locals in the area knew which water source wouldn’t make you sick.Some simulations show how green our planet was between 100 and 500 years ago.Surprise, surprise!
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