[Northkeep] Ancient Brewmasters Made Medicinal Beer
RockMeAmadeo at gmail.com
RockMeAmadeo at gmail.com
Tue Sep 7 08:15:13 PDT 2010
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=ancient-brewmasters-made-medicinal-10-09-06
Ancient Brewmasters Made Medicinal Beer
In 1980, a scientist looking at bone fragments under an ultraviolet
microscope noticed the bones were glowing green—a hallmark of the
antibiotic tetracycline. The drug latches onto calcium and gets deposited
in bone. Nothing unusual. Except these bones were from a Nubian mummy
buried 1,600 years ago in Sudan—long before scientists discovered
tetracycline, in 1948.
At the time, other scientists said the antibiotic probably just
contaminated the bones after death. Because tetracycline's secreted by a
soil bacterium, Streptomyces. To get to the bottom of this, a chemist
recently took bone from the mummy of a Nubian child and dissolved it in
hydrogen fluoride, a nasty acid that helps extract tetracycline. And this
bone extract also matched the chemical signature of tetracycline—evidence
that the antibiotic was built into the kid's bones as he grew. That
analysis appears in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. [Mark
Nelson et al, http://bit.ly/dsgY56]
Anthropologists know the Nubians were skilled brewers. Researchers now
believe that the ancient brewmasters learned to purposely make their beer
medicinal, by lacing it with grain contaminated with antibiotic-producing
Streptomyces bacteria. Just imagine that prescription.
—Christopher Intagliata
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