[MR] wow.... just wow

[David Chessler]

The well has to be a substantial distance from the outhouse and should be
uphill, unless there's a sloping ledge under ground that can let the outhouse
drain into the well. I think the modern standard is a hundred feet or more.
Well, percolate into the well. Percolation through soil can somewhat purify
water, but don't bet on it. Wells were usually dug wells, so they were usually
less than about 30 feet deep. This is shallow enough to be contaminated by
surface dirt (manure) percolating into it. Of course, people do acquire
immunity to the bacteria that usually assault them, which is why there are old
travelers tales of people going to other cities where the water was "perfectly
good" to the local residents, but made the visitors sick. I can name one third
world city I've often visited where foreigners and the middle class drink
bottled water, but the poor drink from the tap. I think the state department
says the tap water is chlorinated and generally safe, though it doesn't taste
good. I carry a water bottle in my briefcase.

Making beer and wine is a process involving yeasts. These produce alcohol and
carbon dioxide, making the ferment resistant to most bacteria, and killing
those bacteria in the ferment. Not all the bacteria: there are acid bacteria
which will turn wine into vinegar. Vinegar is bacteria-free, and from reports
of wine being "thin and sour", I suspect that a lot of what people drank then,
we would classify as vinegar.

I have read of experiments in which people put wine in water (perhaps half and
half), and after a short wait of about 20 minutes, most of the bacteria in the
water were killed. As you know, in French peasant society, even to this day,
it is customary to drink wine with water mixed in--and even give it to
children. (A lot less of that then there used to be, but when you hear of
French children drinking wine, it's water with a few drops for color.)

Anyhow, small beer is also considered to be relatively safe from bacteria.
They did start with the cleanest water they had, because impurities in the
water will make the beer taste bad. (I don't think water is normally added to
wine in the fermenting process--especially with grapes that might have been
low on sugar to begin with.) And don't forget, beer (I don't know small beer)
is usually aged a short while in the cask to let it settle, and, incidentally,
kill bacteria. 

------ Original Message ------
Received: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:01:04 AM EST
From: Maymunah al Siqilliyah <alsiqilliyah at gmail.com>
To: atlantia at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Subject: Re: [MR] wow.... just wow

> I disagree on the idea that wells were safer then than now because of 
> modern pollution.  The location (and depth) of your cemetery, your 
> outhouse and your well in relationship to each other is crucial to clean 
> water.  They did not understand bacteria, had no method of testing water 
> safety.    A well that was just fine can go bad almost overnight if a 
> poorly maintained outhouse contaminates ground water.
> 
> On 1/31/2011 8:52 AM, Kelly Keck wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Alexandria
Stratton<kyrilex at yahoo.com>wrote:
> >
> >> I'm not sure I'd agree with that.
> >> Water is required to make beer and wine. If the water is bad, then so
will
> >> be
> >> what you make of it. Boiling water was certainly a practice, as we've
seen
> >> from
> >> various recipe sources. Fresh water was abundant in many places, and the
> >> Roman
> >> aqueducts were still in use for quite a while after the Empire fell.
Folks
> >> did
> >> know how to dig wells, after all, and ground water was not nearly as
> >> commonly
> >> contaminated as it is today...(no nuclear waste dumps upriver)
> >> Besides, one needs water to survive. The alcohol content would have had
to
> >> equal
> >> that of distilled spirits to kill the alleged bacteria, which is a level
> >> unattainable for beer&  wine. In short, if the water was bad, then the
beer
> >> was
> >> bad, they'd both make you sick&  die. Besides, alchohol dehydrates the
> >> body...
> >
> > Did anybody catch "How Beer Saved the World" on the Discovery Channel
last
> > night?  It did mention the "water not being safe to drink" issue, and
they
> > verified it with a lab test.  They tested water from a duck pond and
> > confirmed the presence of bacteria found in duck poop in that water. 
They
> > made it into beer, in a process that involved boiling, and the bacteria
were
> > not found in the beer.
> >
> > Though, I'm sure a lot of water sources were perfectly safe.  You
wouldn't
> > want to drink from a river in a city, but you make a good point about
wells
> > being likely safer than they are today.  The problem is, without germ
theory
> > or any way to test water, it's hard to tell which is safe and which
isn't.
> >
> > Adriana