I am not anything close to an ecologist or a biologist so this question may be really dumb. But I know that water is essential. It is used in many important bodily processes and we would die without it very quickly.
So my question is, how did so many generations of humans survive without the water purification standards that we have today?
Is there a reasonable amount of dirt, toxins, bacteria, etc… that can be in water and it won’t make us sick?
I also know people have boiled water for a very long time but didn’t we only discover bacteria and viruses in the lasts several hundred years? Did people know that boiling water would purify it?
Also am I wrong for thinking that most water in nature is dangerous to drink?
Hopefully these questions make sense.
In: 1437
We figured out boiling pretty quickly, and even before knowing about germs, bacteria, and parasites, we knew that drinking certain types of water makes us sick. Likely in the same way we learned that certain berries are poisonous. It turns out boiling water is extremely effective at making it drinkable, it isn’t perfect but it gets the job done in most cases.
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