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
Streams used to be much cleaner to drink from. That changed when people started bringing livestock everywhere, especially cows and goats, their excrement made its way into the waterways. Main risk of drinking untreated water is E. coli and giardia, both of which come from solid waste of animals.
That’s why when you hike up to alpine lakes, where there’s nothing upstream, you can drink straight from the lakes / streams without filtering (not necessarily recommended, but definitely safer than something lower down).
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