Health Beer

Scientists who took a chemical analysis of ancient Nubian (present day Sudan) mummies from 1,600 years ago indicate that they brewed beer with tetracycline, an antibiotic. Suck on that cold filtered science, Coors!

Chemist Mark Nelson noted, "The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time." They didn't have a Rite Aid, but he added, "I'm convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug." Tetracycline latches on to calcium and gets deposited in bones, which is how it can be detected it in fossils. An ultraviolet light technique only identified tetracycline was in the bone, but by dissolving them in hydrogen fluoride, they could clearly identify the amount present.

Tetracycline is produced by a soil bacteria called streptomyces, which thrive in warm, arid regions just like ancient Nubia - and probably contaminated a batch of beer. The Nubians likely noticed the antibiotics cured them of bacterial infection, and given the amount of it in their bones that it is near impossible that the tetracycline-laced beer was a fluke event.

Study co-author George Armelagos asked his graduate students to try to brew this type of beer to confirm that making an antibiotic beer was possible. "What they were making wasn’t like a Bud Light but a cereal gruel...students said that it was 'not bad,' but it is like a sour porridge substance. The ancient people would have drained the liquid off and also eaten the gruel." Early bar food...yuck.

There is some preliminary evidence of tetracycline in the bones of people who date back 1300 to 1400 A.D., furthering the notion that antibiotics were previously discovered before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. It may also explain why animals have been found with antibiotic resistance in Northern Africa where there is no previous evidence of antibiotics being used.