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A comment on Life Expectancy Among European Scholars from the 16th to the Early 20th Century. Parent comment

Re:Life Expectancy Among European Scholars from the 16th to ... by notahacker on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @09:31AM (#26647027)
The Roman water system also included lead pipes which poisoned its citizens. Victorian London included elaborate systems to pump water that was 'clean' inasmuch as it didn't smell like the Thames, but it still killed hundreds of people before Jon Snow searched for evidence to support his contested theory that the cholera outbreak could be traced to use of a particular water point

There's a big difference between water that is nice to drink and water that doesn't contain harmful pathogens, and cities that had piped water for centuries stopped killing their inhabitants from water-borne infections when scientists figured out germs existed and could be killed

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Re:Life Expectancy Among European Scholars from the 16th to ... by Retric on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @09:34AM (#26647064)
That cholera outbreak was notable because most of the city had clean drinking water. Which means their mitigation strategies largely worked even as they didn’t understand the root causes of cholera.

Also, Roman aqueduct water had minimal lead contamination due to the high flow rate, unfortunately they used lead for a huge range of different things like cups which got lead onto people’s mouth and hands while eating etc.

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