Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> wrote:
> MitchAlsup wrote:
>> On Tuesday, May 2, 2023 at 2:27:41 PM UTC-5, Terje Mathisen wrote:
>>> David Brown wrote:
>>>> On 01/05/2023 21:48, Anton Ertl wrote:
>>>>> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>>>>> an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>>>>>>> One justification given for drinking watered wine (or wined water) is
>>>>>>> that the water was contaminated with various bacteria, and the alcohol
>>>>>>> helped against that (like we are using chlorine nowadays). However,
>>>>>>> early humanity and cultures such as Islam have survived without the
>>>>>>> use of alcohol, so this is probably just a rationalization.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Survival as a group, certainly. However the mortality rates
>>>>>> were very high in the middle of the first millenium. Child
>>>>>> mortality was 500 out of 1000 - I suspect a significant
>>>>>> fraction of that may have been caused by waterborne illnesses.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Even as late as the 17th century, the infant mortality rate
>>>>>> in europe was 400/1000. Statista claims 405/1000 in Egypt in 1895.
>>>>>
>>>>> So the mistake was that they did not wine the water they gave to
>>>>> infants?-)
>>>>
>>>> Here in Norway, a common term connected with childbirth is "barsel" -
>>>> coming from the same etymological root as "beer" and "bar" (as in
>>>> "pub"). This is because immediately after a child was born, both baby
>>>> and mother were given a strong beer to help recover their strength!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And the first medical book printed and published in Scotland starts with
>>>> the recommendation "Do not give whisky to small children - it is not
>>>> good for them." :-)
>>> Around the same time, all farmers were legally obliged to brew beer, to
>>> do that well requires (for the time) extreme cleanliness.
>>>
>>> I am pretty sure that such weak beer was the safest possible drink in
>>> lots of places, unless you had a mountain stream nearby.
>> <
>> Which was devoid of animals pissing and defecating up stream of your
>> consumption point.
>
> Sure, but this a matter of dilution: The only largish animals up there
> are a few reindeer and an order of magnitude less predators, including
> eagles. The smaller birds and rodents can only be a problem during
> lemmings years, at those times you only drink from fast-moving creeks.
>
> Terje
>

The solution is to dig a well and only drink from that.
Streams are not a safe water source, but springs are, natural wells.
Middle East drinking water is all well water.