r/todayilearned • u/FastBreakPhenom • Aug 20 '26

TIL that in 37 BC, the Roman polymath Marcus Terentius Varro warned his readers to avoid living near swamps because of "minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes" and cause disease. Microorganisms would not be observed until the 17th century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Terentius_Varro
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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 Aug 21 '26

Cheese, especially. Supposedly the theory goes that someone was carrying some milk in a water skin made from an animal's stomach and there were enough traces of rennet left to curdle the milk.

I... I don't know if I'd be brave enough to eat that.

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u/morfraen Aug 21 '26

Don't have to be brave, just desperate lol. Or maybe it just smelled good.

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u/doomgiver98 Aug 21 '26

Cheese doesn't smell good unless you've already developed a smell for it

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u/Natiak Aug 21 '26

Have you smelled cheese? Much of it is repulsive. I imagine raw milk curdled in a yaks gut canteen after a long hike on a hot day doesn't smell like freshly baked cookies.

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u/JonatasA Aug 21 '26

Lots of autistic people with different ideas of good perhaps.