Timeline for What would be the best way to get clean, drinkable water in a medieval city?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
33 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 23, 2016 at 18:40 | history | edited | ckersch | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Missing period.
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| Apr 17, 2016 at 17:18 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine: With medieval supply chains, the cow would have been in your back yard. Even when I was a kid (in very rural Appalachia-without-the-folklore), many people kept a cow or two. I don't recall ever drinking pasteurized (= store-bought) milk except in school. | |
| Apr 17, 2016 at 5:49 | answer | added | Chas | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 16, 2016 at 9:54 | answer | added | nigel222 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 22:59 | answer | added | user19912 | timeline score: 5 | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 21:14 | answer | added | Sobrique | timeline score: 4 | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 19:32 | comment | added | Xandar The Zenon | @PeterLeFanuLumsdaine True, but it can't be that hard to leave the city areas, which are dirtier and more unhealthy anyway. | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 15:58 | comment | added | Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine | @XandarTheZenon: like you, I love raw milk and believe it’s generally perfectly safe — but that still depends on having a short and hygienic supply chain between you and the cow. With medieval transport and refrigeration, I doubt that milk would have been easily available in cities (let alone up to modern standards of safety). | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 9:47 | comment | added | Rory Alsop | Jack - that is ridiculously untrue! Raw milk fresh from the cow is very safe, and much safer than the water at that time. Even now it is one of the healthiest things to drink if you grow up on a farm. But as gbjbaanb mentioned - you need to make sure the udders and bucket are clean. | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 7:46 | comment | added | gbjbaanb | @JackAidley not necessarily - the problem with milk is more one of containment, if you put it in a bucket and leave it for a while, or the udders are not clean, then you get the contaniments that are the main cause of illness from it. The latter is more of a problem than many people realise. | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 7:43 | comment | added | gbjbaanb | I'm fed up with the fact that all of those things are beer - sorry, but the basic premise of the question became invalid when you said this! | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 7:42 | comment | added | Jack Aidley | @XandarTheZenon: No, that's dangerously untrue. Raw milk is not safe and anyone who drinks it regularly stands a high risk of getting ill from it. It is a frequent cause of outbreaks of Campylobacteriosis. | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 4:30 | comment | added | isanae | It's a myth that people drank mostly small beer and kept shitting and pissing in their water sources. In fact, London even had the Great Conduit built in 1245. The best way to get clean water would be to drink what everybody else is drinking. | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 4:02 | answer | added | Peter Wone | timeline score: 17 | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 3:27 | comment | added | Xandar The Zenon | @JackAidley Raw milk is actually quite safe, and quite healthy. It is not as dangerous as people like to claim, even though the dangers are a little bit higher. I think the health benefits as opposed to detriments are enough to justify it. If you consider the life expectancy of that time period, you are probably more likely to die before you are poisoned by the milk. | |
| Apr 14, 2016 at 1:29 | comment | added | Mikey | @Ellesedil - I was being a little bit cheeky, of course, but yes, I was hinting that rainwater would be a great instant solution. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 23:44 | comment | added | Ellesedil | @Mikey: Since the question's premise is in London, it's fair to say that it rains there. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 21:54 | answer | added | ventsyv | timeline score: 10 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 21:19 | comment | added | user19882 | @Mikey If alcohol (in concentrations < 12% which you can create by fermentation alone) killed germs there'd be no such thing as vinegar. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 17:42 | comment | added | Mikey | Rainwater catchment. Does it rain in your city? | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 16:08 | comment | added | Jack Aidley | @XandarTheZenon: Unfortunately milk will not be pasteurized so it's very likely to give you food poisoning. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 15:24 | comment | added | Luaan | @Mikey Actually, boiling is the important part. The fact that in Europe, this used to be combined with fermentation processes is basically an economic accident - boiling was also the expensive part, so why not make it a beer while you're at it? In contrast, places like India or China used tea for the same effect. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 15:15 | answer | added | Xen2050 | timeline score: 21 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 9:20 | answer | added | Graham | timeline score: 7 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 7:50 | comment | added | Michael Schumacher | Are there any affordable materials in the medieval suitable for solar water disinfection? | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 5:41 | answer | added | T3 H40 | timeline score: 80 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 5:27 | answer | added | sevvack | timeline score: 14 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 5:12 | comment | added | jamesqf | Why do you want to stay in London? (Things haven't changed much in seven centuries: this is essentially the same reason I live where I do, rather than in a major metropolitan area :-)) | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 3:56 | comment | added | Xandar The Zenon | Well, I will be in trouble, because my religion believes in abstaining from alcohol. I will try to help you Ckersch, but I think the only thing to do is boil the water or drink milk. I love milk. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 2:39 | comment | added | Mikey | Mix with alcohol; fermenting anything at all that has sugars, even grass, can kill most of the germs. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 1:30 | comment | added | Nicol Bolas | Is merely boiling the water insufficient for making it potable? Also, people in medieval times knew to avoid mixing water and feces. If it happened, it was usually due to the richer folk who were up-river from them. | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 1:09 | answer | added | Ville Niemi | timeline score: 8 | |
| Apr 13, 2016 at 0:22 | history | asked | ckersch | CC BY-SA 3.0 |