Wasn’t that literally the purpose of grog? A mixture of beer and water used on ships to kill harmful bacteria that would grow in the ships’ water stores over a long voyage?
And if people in the past knew how to make water safe to drink, then why was epidemiology invented when Londoners couldn’t figure out that they should stop drinking poop water?
Wasn’t that literally the purpose of grog? A mixture of beer and water used on ships to kill harmful bacteria that would grow in the ships’ water stores over a long voyage?
Grog was a mixture of rum, water, and lime juice. Beer does not have enough of an alcohol content to have any antibacterial impact. Your basic premise is flawed.
The main reasons grog was invented were twofold, first and foremost, it diluted the alcohol to manage the sailors’ intoxication levels (much like drinking a rum and Coke does today). Secondly, the addition of lime juice helped fight off scurvy (leading to British sailors being called “limeys”).
While it did improve the flavor of stale water, the disinfecting properties have been greatly exaggerated over time.
I can’t speak to practices on sailing ships, those surely differ from general history especially when it comes to fresh water which isn’t freely available on the ocean.
And to your second point, in the context of history that happened in modern times. The cholera epidemics happened in the 19th century with the epidemiologist John Snow publishing his treatise in 1855. Unsafe drinking water causing widespread disease was mainly a problem of modern cities in the industrial age and the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that came with it.
Wasn’t that literally the purpose of grog? A mixture of beer and water used on ships to kill harmful bacteria that would grow in the ships’ water stores over a long voyage?
And if people in the past knew how to make water safe to drink, then why was epidemiology invented when Londoners couldn’t figure out that they should stop drinking poop water?
Grog was a mixture of rum, water, and lime juice. Beer does not have enough of an alcohol content to have any antibacterial impact. Your basic premise is flawed.
The main reasons grog was invented were twofold, first and foremost, it diluted the alcohol to manage the sailors’ intoxication levels (much like drinking a rum and Coke does today). Secondly, the addition of lime juice helped fight off scurvy (leading to British sailors being called “limeys”).
While it did improve the flavor of stale water, the disinfecting properties have been greatly exaggerated over time.
I can’t speak to practices on sailing ships, those surely differ from general history especially when it comes to fresh water which isn’t freely available on the ocean.
And to your second point, in the context of history that happened in modern times. The cholera epidemics happened in the 19th century with the epidemiologist John Snow publishing his treatise in 1855. Unsafe drinking water causing widespread disease was mainly a problem of modern cities in the industrial age and the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that came with it.