I mean they did not have germ theory but over time people would realize alcohol is safer.
I mean, that would just lead to germ theory (which was kicking around as a minority theory before the microscope). In reality, people will ascribe their problems to all kinds of crazy things, spirits and demons being the most popular. If something is actually poisonous and kills or maims 100% of the time, they’d catch on, but health correlations that are a crapshoot went unnoticed for centuries, because a lot of people were just violently ill from a lot of things.
I mean, that would just lead to germ theory (which was kicking around as a minority theory before the microscope). In reality, people will ascribe their problems to all kinds of crazy things, spirits and demons being the most popular. If something is actually poisonous and kills or maims 100% of the time, they’d catch on, but health correlations that are a crapshoot went unnoticed for centuries, because a lot of people were just violently ill from a lot of things.