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
As others have said the risk is higher to our modern safety standards but I’d like to add that people nowadays have more probability to get sick from drinking untreated water due to worse and less prepared gut flora.
Plus that was a reason for an higher alcohol consumption, if you add wine to your water to reach 1-2% alcohol plus tannins and acid you get rid of most micro-organism.
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