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 just out bred it. Dysentery has over the course of humanity killed billions. It killed entire families, communities, tribes, hell it still kills people. Before IV fluids you had to hope someone was well enough to go find potable water and bring it to you as you dehydrated yourself through every viable orifice until you were too weak to move.
As for boiling water we didn’t know why it worked we just knew it did. It was probably discovered on accident when we boiled something and made soup. There was more likely then not long periods of human history when we thought you had to cook something in water to make it drinkable.
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