If the germ theory is relatively new, how do they think fermentation was happening (like wine, ale, yogurt etc.) thousands of years ago?
In: 613
Basically, while the nature of microbes (germs) and their composition, size, etc. were unknown, ancient people were pretty good about understanding their effects.
For example, several ancient religions/cultures forbid handling of dead bodies and eating pork; the ancient people wouldn’t have known about dangerous bacteria in rotting flesh or transmissible parasites in pigs, but they probably noticed a lot of people get sick/die after handling dead bodies of eating bad pork.
The Mongols believed that boiling water would drive our evil spirits and make it safe; replace ‘evil spirits’ with ‘disease causing pathogens’ and it’s pretty solid.
So, while ancient people didn’t know the chemical composition or processes of brewery yeast or alcohol, they knew water + sugar source + bread stuff = fire water. These ingredients would’ve been pretty close together, and alcohol even forms naturally on occasion. The fact that alcoholic drinks wouldn’t cause people to get the runs incentivized them to make it
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