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
People did use to die from drinking untreated water. All the time. (They also got sick from it but didn’t die. This is most likely what will happen if you drink untreated water. You won’t die, but you will get sick.)
Also, people did figure out how to drink water semi-safely. As you note, many people boiled water. They did do this because they realized it was safer to drink this than other water.
In addition, people constructed aqueducts to bring water from mountain streams (generally safe) to cities. They also dug wells to gain access to safer water.
It was unusual for people to drink out of rivers, especially downstream from livestock, towns, industry, etc.
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