Has this always been a thing? It almost seems like this is an artificial problem, people survived tens of thousands of years drinking river water, as long as it's not stagnet water it used to be fine? Maybe I'm just ignorant and this was really common through out history, but I haven't heard about all this stuff until more recently. It seems like going to the river, beach, lake is a potential death sentence these days.
I wouldn't know, been swimming in rivers all my life. Granted not ones downstream from any major city. I think you go back far enough and probably a lot of people died from shit they hadn't figured out yet.
Makes since, I've drank river water deep in the wilderness but never right by some big city. I wouldn't doubt there is a bunch of crazy shit in the water, but I also think it's possible stupid people are drinking from stagnet pools or something. Think about that river in India they shit in, float dead bodies away in, bath in, drink from, and do laundry in. I definitely wouldn't drink from that nigger river.
I think people used to just die from regular 'ol common death that just happens back before they figured out what they were dying from.
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