Alcohol concentrations below 50% have sharply diminished disinfecting utility, and wine and beer have alcohol concentrations in the neighborhood of 5%. However, the water in wine comes from grapes, while the water in beer may have been boiled prior to brewing. If the beer or wine was a commercial product, the brewer might have taken extra care in sourcing ingredients in order to protect their reputation.
Beer and fungal contamination is a problem for the beer industry. Many fungi are adapted to the presence of small amounts of alcohol (indeed, that’s why fermentation works at all), and these beverages are full of sugars that bacteria and fungi can metabolize for their growth.
People might have noticed that certain water sources could make you sick, but if so, they could also have noticed which sources were safe to drink. On the other hand, consider also that people continued to use and get cholera from the Broad Street Pump. If John Snow’s efforts were what was required to identify such a contaminated water source with the benefit of germ theory, then it would be surprising if people would have been very successful in identifying delayed sickness from a contaminated water source unless the water source was obviously polluted.
An appeal to metis only seems to support the idea that people avoided drinking water to avoid getting sick if we also assume there were no safe water sources around, if this persisted long enough and obviously enough for people to catch on, and people saw no alternative but to give up on drinking water.
I also think it’s interesting that several religions have banned or discouraged alcohol consumption, and have also required or prohibited certain behaviors for reasons of hygiene, and yet, AFAIK, no religion has ever mandated that its followers drink alcohol and refuse water. Instead, we have numerous examples of religions promoting the consumption of water as more spiritual or healthful.
One factor to consider is that drinking alcohol causes pleasure, and pleasure is the motivation in motivated cognition.
Most comments on the internet are against any laws or technical measures that would prevent internet users from downloading for free copies of music and video files. I think the same thing is going on there: listening to music—music new to the listener particularly—causes pleasure, and that pleasure acts as motivation to reject plans and ways of framing things that would lead to less listening to novel music in the future.
Alcohol concentrations below 50% have sharply diminished disinfecting utility, and wine and beer have alcohol concentrations in the neighborhood of 5%. However, the water in wine comes from grapes, while the water in beer may have been boiled prior to brewing. If the beer or wine was a commercial product, the brewer might have taken extra care in sourcing ingredients in order to protect their reputation.
Beer and fungal contamination is a problem for the beer industry. Many fungi are adapted to the presence of small amounts of alcohol (indeed, that’s why fermentation works at all), and these beverages are full of sugars that bacteria and fungi can metabolize for their growth.
People might have noticed that certain water sources could make you sick, but if so, they could also have noticed which sources were safe to drink. On the other hand, consider also that people continued to use and get cholera from the Broad Street Pump. If John Snow’s efforts were what was required to identify such a contaminated water source with the benefit of germ theory, then it would be surprising if people would have been very successful in identifying delayed sickness from a contaminated water source unless the water source was obviously polluted.
An appeal to metis only seems to support the idea that people avoided drinking water to avoid getting sick if we also assume there were no safe water sources around, if this persisted long enough and obviously enough for people to catch on, and people saw no alternative but to give up on drinking water.
I also think it’s interesting that several religions have banned or discouraged alcohol consumption, and have also required or prohibited certain behaviors for reasons of hygiene, and yet, AFAIK, no religion has ever mandated that its followers drink alcohol and refuse water. Instead, we have numerous examples of religions promoting the consumption of water as more spiritual or healthful.
huh, interesting. I wonder where the hell the common story came from.
One factor to consider is that drinking alcohol causes pleasure, and pleasure is the motivation in motivated cognition.
Most comments on the internet are against any laws or technical measures that would prevent internet users from downloading for free copies of music and video files. I think the same thing is going on there: listening to music—music new to the listener particularly—causes pleasure, and that pleasure acts as motivation to reject plans and ways of framing things that would lead to less listening to novel music in the future.