Ancient Nubians Drank Antibiotic-Laced Beer 249
eldavojohn writes "A new analysis of millennia old mummy bones (abstract; full article is paywalled) shows high concentrations of tetracycline, which indicates empirical knowledge and use of antibiotics — most likely consumed in beer. The researchers traced the source of the antibiotics to the soil bacteria streptomyces present in the grain used to ferment the beer. Astonishingly enough, 'Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness.' The extent of saturation in the bones leads the scientists to assert that the population regularly consumed tetracycline antibiotics knowing that it would cure certain sicknesses."
Where are they now? (Score:4, Interesting)
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It probably regularly happened. A new strain of disease comes along, old traditions and rituals don't work and societies get thrown into turmoil - most dramatically, look at what happened to some of the big civilizations of the New World when European diseases swept through.
Obligatory... (Score:2, Funny)
"What's a Nubian?"
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Nubian sounds like a new distro of Linux!
Wait for Knubian with KDE.
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If it was a linux distro, it would be spelled Gnubian or Kgnubian something similar while sporting a picture of some bearded goat thing playing ball with a penguin.
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I thought it was a type of ship in the Star Wars prequels...
Re:Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
What about you? You didn't tell me you were gonna scream "Black Rage!" I nearly pissed myself!
So what killed the kid? (Score:3, Interesting)
The sickness, the tetracycline, or simply the high dose of beer?
Re:So what killed the kid? (Score:5, Funny)
Drunk driving.
Re:So what killed the kid? (Score:5, Funny)
The scientist. It would be inhumane to run these tests on a live child.
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Far better to let the child die from a possibly curable infection. That is why our current civilized society never offers experimental treatments to people after informing them of the risks, ever.
That's just wrong... (Score:4, Funny)
giving a child drug-laced beer. Next they'll discover they also used medical marijuana, which would be an even greater sin.
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Not really, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes sick people got better after drinking beer.
How is this any different than any historical herbal remedy? They didn't need to have any more knowledge of anti-biotics than natives eating mushrooms need know the shrooms contain psilocybin.
Bacteria infected their grain, this resulted in anti-biotic beer which became a local herbal remedy or healing potion. No actual discovery of bacteria or idea WHY the remedy heals. Interesting but hardly 'astonishing'.
Re:Not really, no (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe they just liked beer.. I'm pretty sure most people consuming large doses of beer these days aren't doing it for the health benefits.
Re:Not really, no (Score:4, Insightful)
quite possible, they could have been drowning their sick children in massive doses of beer to ease their suffering.
In the Nubians defense, 'most people consuming large doses of beer these days' aren't consuming anti-biotic beer so they don't have the opportunity to drink it for the same health benefits. Besides that, anti-biotics can be ordered in pure forms now.
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've ever been to Africa, you'll know this. The reason you drink only beer, no matter your objections and thoughts on the matter is that you're relatively sure it won't infect you with an illness. Drinking water from a pond in the jungle is Russian roulette. Drinking water offered by inhabitants of a village is asking for poison.
Even today, in remote parts of Africa you drink either bottled water (which you check before you drink it), or beer. Nothing else. You just can't trust it.
And let's not talk about the food.
Re:Not really, no (Score:4, Informative)
Beer : contains alcohol - which kills many water borne pathogens, is made by boiling water, which kills most of the rest
Medieval Europe and colonial North America drank large amounts of "Small Beer" Low alcohol beer, instead of water for precisely this reason, it was simply but very effectively abiotic
All the Nubian's added to this was that they stumbled across an ingredient that made it anti-biotic as well...
In the Ancient Near-East (Sumeria/Babylon etc) they drank Mead - Honey beer that is also anti-biotic ....
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Not really, no (Score:4, Informative)
You drop a pathogen into a solution that's 2%-8% alcohol with a PH around 4-5 that's had most of its sugars and oxygen consumed and tell me how it does. Alcohol isn't the whole story but it's a big part of it. The yeast more or less have a scorched earth policy towards the unfermented beer. They use aerobic respiration as long as there is oxygen available so they can multiply. When there is no more oxygen, they'll resort to anaerobic respiration and eat up all of the sugars and leave behind alcohol and CO2. When that is done, they'll go dormant for a while but if left in the brew too long will even resort to autolysis and start eating each other. They consume almost anything and everything that can be consumed and leave their environment quite inhospitable afterwards to anything but bacteria like lactobacillus or less picky yeast strains like brettanomyces. Even infected beer is generally safe to drink because of the type of infection that would have to be present to survive the harsh post-fermentation environment.
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So... yeast eats sugars, pisses alcohol and farts bubbles?
Cool!
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I'm not sure how it affects other organisms, but yes, alcohol needs to be about 70% to kill bacteria directly, which is why first aid methanol is sold at 70% or higher concentrations. Grandparent is right that wort is boiled for an hour or more, however, and that should do in most bacteria and other microorganisms (like wild yeasts).
Brewer's yeast is not exactly the best competitor - beer making generally requires a very clean process, often involving soaking pretty much everything in bleach
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The reason you drink only beer, no matter your objections and thoughts on the matter is that you're relatively sure it won't infect you with an illness.
In colonial times, the United States was similar. The first batch of beer went to the pubs or into private stashes.
The wort was re-used for multiple batches, which were much lower in alcohol content. But, it was enough to kill the pathogens and was drank at every meal. It was even served to children.
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Wort becomes beer. You can't reuse it any more than you can reuse eggs to make multiple omelets.
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Informative)
Ya this kinda sounds like herbal medicine BS in reverse. Rather than saying "People used herbs to cure illness so these herbs will cure you!" form of modern luddism this is kind of a reverse claim of forced sophistication "These people's remedy had anti-biotics so clearly they know about anti-biotics and did it on purpose!"
I doubt there was empirical testing going on here. As the parent said, the beer sometimes helped people get better so they used it. This is like any other herbal remedy. Once we got better at all this and started testing, we found that sometimes herbal remedies were on the money. People used willow bark as an analgesic and fever reducer and sure as shit, one of the ingredients works great and lead to aspirin. Others have some minor benefits, sometimes it is questionable if it is statistically significant but the seem to help in some things. Others were just placebo, they don't do shit.
None of this was know, hence why there's a great mixture.
I like what Dara O' Briain has to say about it: "Oh herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. Indeed it has, and then we tested it all and the stuff that worked became -medicine-. And the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri. So knock yourselves out."
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There is also the minor consideration that drinking "pure" water would kill you (cholera, etc) and the alcohol in the beer killed the bacteria up front so kids drinking beer was not unusual
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Re:Not really, no (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's the alcohol content and relatively low PH (usually in the 4-5 range) that makes beer so unfriendly for pathogens. There are even styles of beer like Berliner Weisse [wikipedia.org] that are not traditionally boiled but are still far safer to drink than water of unknown quality.
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Initial boiling kills anything in the water used to make the beer, the alcohol from fermentation helps prevent subsequent infection from most other microorganisms. Other more herbal ingredients (hops, for instance) can add other antimicrobial properties. There is a per
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't go as far with herb bashing as you (you seem to be implying willow bark is the only herb with a better than minor effect). Half the herbs on the shelf in GNC have peer reviewed double blind studies backing them which is really all the prescription drugs show. The effects or many are significant enough they need to be considered right alongside prescription meds for contraindications.
None of that is to say that there is any sort of manufacturing oversight, claims testing (particularly in the diet and erectile dysfunction areas) or that a natural random soup of chemicals is somehow automatically safer than an intelligently purpose crafted solution. But there ARE many effective herbal remedies and some that seem to be more effective than prescription solutions (marijuana is far more effective than comparable prescription medications in not one but numerous areas). Another example is fish oil, like marijuana there are many physicians recommending fish oil over FDA approved supplements.
A lot of people have a bogus idea about herbal testing. They think because no testing is required that none is performed. Or they believe some odd myth that none of these substances have been shown effective in testing. Or that a single molecule is always responsible for the effects. There is less money to be made herbal remedies and less control of claims. As a result there are fewer studies into their effects. Just the same there have been many studies (though far less than of prescription meds) and they OFTEN show benefits vs placebo not rarely.
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I could be wrong, but I think you're reading something into his statement that's not there. I didn't see anything that suggested it was the only effective herb - it was just a single example.
You might want to look at what Ben Goldacre has to say about fish oils, and the poor science behind much of their p
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You're really citing Ben Goldacre? There's as much criticism of him as their are the studies he "picks apart." He's basically the medical equivalent of the modern day forum troll who adds nothing to the conversation but takes every chance he gets to point out the fact that someone didn't dot his i's or cross his t's. Granted, I think that scrutiny in the medical field is needed now more than ever, but we need people giving constructive criticism, not criticism alone.
I think a major issue with most medica
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Shananagans on two counts:
i) I think there is significant reason to doubt that you checked for studies with very much rigor.
ii) Even it you did check for some. It's not necessarily the same as what prescription drugs are required to show. I've read a number of journal articles on herbal remedies and what I tend to see are small-n, poorly controlled, terrible end
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Informative)
Citation for what exactly? I didn't say anything that isn't widely known and easily findable with a simple google search. My examples can also be verified with simple searching. Of course my statements regarding herbs and contraindications are easy enough to find in the PDR. If you have trouble distinguishing noise from signal then try walking into a GNC and picking up a bottle then taking it to the counter.
GNC regularly distributes a large compendium of what, if any, studies have been conducted on the herbs in the supplements they carry or their (suspected) active ingredients. They only have basics, summary of conclusions, basic type of study (sample size, single or double blind, etc). If you want more detail you need to get more detailed with the question. GNC should be able to provide you with enough information to find the full text of any individual study yourself.
Of course your results at GNC are going to vary with the competence of the person at the counter. If you get an incompetent they will probably let you grab the book and search yourself.
I think a lot of the myths are supported with broad negative conclusions drawn from properly narrow studies. For instance a study on Ginko Biloba came out recently which showed that it wasn't effective at restoring memory function to the elderly who had already lost function. Previous studies showed that Ginko enhanced memory function in adults (without control for memory loss). These are completely different things but people immediately jumped on the Ginko is debunked now train.
Note: I'm not actually saying that Ginko is effective. I don't use any drugs (herbal or prescription) outside those in a carefully controlled diet unless I have an immediate medical need with risks that override the crapshoot that comes with haphazardly tossing chemicals into the delicate and poorly understood chemical balance that is my body.
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The problem with all neutriceuticals is that there's a loophole in the law (at least in the U.S.) that allows them to bypass the FDA testing process. That's why with all of the TV ads, you'll see, "These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to cure, prevent, or treat any disease." Basically, they can make any claims they want in the ads, and the products only have to be as effective as PEZ.
Prescription drugs, on the other hand, have to go through clinical trials [wikipedia.org] show at
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Insightful)
This reasoning is about as sound as "Of course marijuana is bad for you: it's illegal!"
Until last year tobacco was not regulated by the FDA, and I'm pretty sure the active ingredient in it was known to be "potent enough to have an effect on your health" even way back in the dark ages of 2008. To say nothing of caffeine, which is not regulated by the FDA as a drug but as a food ingredient or dietary supplement... like an "herbal".
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Until last year tobacco was not regulated by the FDA, and I'm pretty sure the active ingredient in it was known to be "potent enough to have an effect on your health" even way back in the dark ages of 2008.
Of course, that's why treatments based on nicotine (and there certainly are some) are classified as drugs, and have been regulated by the FDA for some time now. (Nicotinic agonists are being investigated for things like asthma [medicalnewstoday.com].
The issue with tobacco is that it's been a long time since cigarette makers have made any claims about the health benefits of smoking. The cigarette companies are now regulated to the extent that they're not allowed to say "light" or "low tar" in their marketing, they have to have
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"The bottom line is this: If a substance is potent enough to have an effect on your health, it's a drug, and is subject to regulation by the FDA."
Incorrect. This has nothing to do with effectiveness or strength. The 'loophole' is the FDA's own guidelines which state that any traditional remedy with a long established documented history or safe use is exempt from regulation.
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The 'loophole' is the FDA's own guidelines which state that any traditional remedy with a long established documented history or safe use is exempt from regulation.
Shoot, then it should apply to cannabis.
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That's simply false. Here is the FDA's own definition [fda.gov] of a drug:
How does the law define a drug?
The FD&C Act defines drugs, in part, by their intended use, as "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" [FD&C Act, sec. 201(g)(1)]. [Emphasis added]
That's why when you see a neutriceutical advertised, they're careful about what claims they make (or, more accurately, what they disclaim). If the compound in question is actually touted as doing something for your health, it has to come under the FDA regulations concerning trials. This commercial [youtube.com] is typical of how the companies skirt the issue of effects.
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Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Insightful)
That is empirical testing. The herbalists would have done better to stick to it. Unfortunately, they developed bogus theories.
Well, no. Some of it is toxic.
Re:Not really, no (Score:5, Insightful)
I like what Dara O' Briain has to say about it: "Oh herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. Indeed it has, and then we tested it all and the stuff that worked became -medicine-. And the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri. So knock yourselves out."
A lot of what you said is very true - herbal medicine in general is not as systematic or scientific as modern medicine.
However, to make a blanket statement that all herbal medicine is hit-and-miss, voodoo magic, and unscientific is also distorting the truth, and based on ignorance of our past. Science is not the fiefdom of the Greco-Roman system we have been following in the last couple of hundred years. Systematic and scientific study has indeed been followed by many old cultures, albeit not to the level of sophistication that we currently follow. Nonetheless, you cannot just trash it completely.
Look at what Sushruta [wikipedia.org] used to do in India in 800BC for example.
To quote the wikipedia article:
"The Sushruta Samhita contains 184 chapters and description of 1120 illnesses, 700 medicinal plants, a detailed study on Anatomy, 64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations based on animal sources."
Not just medicine, he has written extensively about surgery, especially plastic surgery, and some of his techniques and instruments are still being used today.
He wasn't alone, you can also read about Charaka [wikipedia.org].
What I am basically trying to say is that the basic principles of science such as logic and experimental proof did not get magically invented a couple of hundred years ago. Most scientists in the old days were let down by a lack of infrastructure and lack of mature manufacturing processes, among other things. They were not let down because their approach was unscientific or unsystematic. Don't trash herbal medicine just because the active chemical ingredient of a herb has not been isolated (because of lack of chemical or process know-how). No system of medicine (even herbal medicine) can withstand the test of time if it was solely based on hit and trial or voodoo/magic, instead of being based on logic and method.
To put it another way, should your great grandchild trash-talk and call you a scientific neanderthal just because you used to eat fruits, vegetables, and meat instead of ingesting (isolated) protein, carb, vitamin, and fibre tablets? Forget isolating nutrients from our food, we haven't even been able to properly bio-engineer the food that we eat. Imagine how barbaric it will feel to a person 500 years from now when they realize that our generation actually needed to slaughter animals for our nutritional intake. They'll probably look at us the way we look at cannibals.
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All my foes are spelling or grammar Nazis.
You have magic Nazis after you who want to correct your grammar?
Dey-um!
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Technically yes. I'm still not impressed. People have been observing and acting based on the results of those observations since the dawn of man. That didn't miraculously start with the formalized scientific method and I don't think anyone is claiming it did.
Additionally, this is how most other herbal remedies were discovered so there still isn't anything astonishing about it.
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Is someone asking you to be "impressed" or "astonished" by this? Try "interested" or "amused" (because it's beer). It's just anecdote about how early humans developed primitive medicine, stumbling by blind luck into something that they surely didn't understand, but modern science has confirmed as medically effective.
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The cool thing to me is that they found a consistent use of anti-biotic laced grain that held up through the brewing process. I wonder how this would effect societies. If one group had children growing up with less infections and sickness, would they have more children reaching adulthood? Would these people end up growing up taller/stronger? I wonder how many early empires got their start do to something weird like this?
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far in the future some asshole will stumble upon an almost entirely destroyed dvd of /. posts, will see yours and say "These people used some form of electronic medium to communicate. However, we, the self proclaimed clerisy insist that they didn't have any actual understanding of the technology they used, they simply used it to bitch about other people and yet were entirely ignorant of the underlying mechanisms that enabled their communication."
The guy will be almost as much of a dick as you are. dick.
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No actual discovery of bacteria or idea WHY the remedy heals.
Agreed. I have a feeling it went more like, "Baby Aapep is sick!"
"Fetch the physician!"
"We must feed him beer from the garden of Min. Also, wear this amulet."
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I'm wearing an amulet. I made it myself. So far, it's rubbed a raw spot on my chest so it must be working.
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Hell, Alexander Fleming didn't discover penicillin because he didn't know the atomic structure.
Geez.
Mmm ... (Score:3, Funny)
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Beats the story about whisky made from a diabetic's urine.
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I'll drink to that.
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Please mod this funny!
Let's see (Score:5, Funny)
1. A new analysis of millennia old mummy bones shows high concentrations of tetracycline.
2. The researchers traced the source of the antibiotics to the soil bacteria streptomyces present in the grain used to ferment the beer.
3. Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline.
Why my conclusion isn't "the population regularly consumed tetracycline antibiotics knowing that it would cure certain sicknesses." but "the Nubian were a bunch of alcoholics, including the children"?
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Or, "expecting mothers drank copious amounts of beer during pregnancy, for it's 'antibiotic' properties"
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This means that you must consume lots of the drugs to be effective. This actually confirms that the Nubians knew more about the process then one might think.
No. No it doesn't. No causality has been established. As of this moment, high levels of Tetracyclene mean one thing only: large quantities of Tetracyclene entered their bodies. That's it.
Either that or (Score:5, Interesting)
Ancient nubians used moldy grain when making beer.
(Yes, streptomyces is a bacteria, but colonies look like and are often confused with mold.)
Sometimes a duck is just a duck. Sometimes, a duck is a cornish game hen in an inflatable suit.
Re:Either that or (Score:5, Informative)
The extent of the [osteon] labeling suggests that the population received tetracycline during osteon mineralization, which occurs during periods of ~80 days. This finding contradicts the notion that the osteons were labeled by a one time event of bacterial contamination of grains or foodstuffs. [...]In contrast, surface inoculation of cracked and water-treated grains would produce tetracycline, but in low yields compared with liquid fermentation
So, the population must have cultured this brew to generate enough tetracycline. Whether it was deliberate (because they knew it had health benefits) or just a happy accident that they kept using the right culture is unanswered.
Re:Either that or (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is then if there is a higher dose of antibiotics in the remains of those who died from disease than those who died from accidents and violence. If there is a higher concentration of antibiotics in the remains of those who died from disease, then this suggests they knew about the healing properties of their beer. After all, the body is better at defeating infections when sober than when you're hammered so not drinking beer while being ill would be a better choice had they not known of the medicinal properties of the beer.
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Question should be: "what other kinds of mold grow on the plants being fermented which were not selected for due to their dangerous effects?" such as the mold that has LSD in it.
There are many possible combinations that would not be good, so actively selecting one which is = cultivation of medicine, not randomness.
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Making and drinking beer was extremely common in the ancient world - the Water was often full of parasites and disease and the process of turning water into beer killed most of them, this was "Small Beer" i.e. with a very low alcohol content, and everybody drank it rather than water ....
In the ancient near east they drank Honey Beer (Mead) which is also slightly anti-biotic .....
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If the NAX population did produce gruels or beer fermentations using Actinomycete bacteria, they would also have needed to inoculate the media used with greater than 10% of an active culture or previous fermentation broth to achieve the growth needed to produce sufficient quantities of tetracycline in a liquid fermentation medium (McCormick et al., 1959). In contrast, surface inoculation of cracked and water-treated grains would produce tetracycline, but in low yields compared with liquid fermentation (Novotny and Herold, 1960).
If I am understanding the article correctly, it sounds like they are implying that either the Nubian population was using really moldy grain to brew their beer, or they might have stumbled upon something that made them want to use the moldy beer for some other reason. It could be something as simple as someone made a batch of beer with some moldy grain and found they liked the taste, to finding that someone got better after being given the beer which lead to them making it the standard brew. Hard to really
What... (Score:2, Troll)
Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness.
And why wouldn't they give this "cure" to a child? Did they have clinical trials that showed liver damage with extensive use of alcohol? And it's not like their younger population got drunk and got into bar fights.
That's like finding out ancient tribes used to smoke marihuana or consume magic mushrooms and saying "Oh gosh! How could they do this, didn't they know Liberals in the future will outlaw fun and make it it illegal?!"
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The beer most people drank had a very low alcohol content, and getting drunk in public was frowned upon even then ....
Confusion (Score:2)
This isn't surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of ancient evidence of indirect antibiotic use, usually through moulds grown on specific substrates (e.g. specific type of bread). The ancient use of penicillin is another good example of this. Of course, they didn't known what compound was responsible for this, but they nevertheless found efficient way to produce it and found out when it was good to used it to cure specific illnesses.
What's particularly interesting about TFA, is that this research seems to suggest that the use of antibiotics was very common and systematic.
So where are they now? (Score:2)
I don't see any around. Did it kill them off?
Why is this surprising anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Making beer - so easy a caveman can do it!
But beer was actually one of the earliest inventions of civilized humans, because it allowed them to drink liquids without having to worry much about waterborne diseases such as dysentery and cholera, and acted as a fantastic way of storing the food energy of grains. Basically, if a culture grew grains, they made alcohol with it.
Bacterial drug resistance (Score:3, Interesting)
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Question: Is resistance to antibiotics energy-unfavourable for bacteria? Meaning, if antibiotics are not abundantly present to guide bacterial evolution, will bacterial strains revert to a 'simpler structure' and become susceptible to antibiotics again?
Yes. But it takes a long time. I know, citation needed, blah, blah...
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Damn Fools (Score:5, Interesting)
They did not consume high concentrations of tetracycline.
They knew beer was good and healthy for people, and consumed very high concentrations of beer!
Bless the Gods Byggver and Silenus for BEER!
And That's Not All! (Score:4, Funny)
The presence of Carbon 14 in their bones is PROOF! PerOOF I tell you! that they had empirical knowledge of radionuclide dating techniques, and consumed precisely enough of the stuff to tell us just exactly how long ago they lived. But how did they know how far in the future it would be when we got their bones and dated them? Because they had the same empirical knowledge of the same psychic pills being taken by the researchers who could read their dead minds to learn that they had empirical knowledge of antibiotics when the evidence only indicates they absorbed endemic soil bacteria whether or not it might have come along with something that they ate which grew in the soil.
1. Dirt (dirty dirt!) ...
2. Beer (dirty beer!)
3.
4. SCIENCE!
I say they got it mixed up. The bones were buried in the soil with the bugs in it. The researchers were the ones with the beer. I have empirical proof: This is my empire and I say that it's so.
Re:I know nothing about this field of science (Score:5, Insightful)
2: Since the reason their beer had antibiotics was due to a lucky coincidence of having soil laced with the antibiotic, did they really know about antibiotics or did they just think they had "magic beer" that cured illnesses.
Perhaps you didn't understand the bit in the summary that referred to empirical knowledge and use of antibiotics?
Re:I know nothing about this field of science (Score:5, Insightful)
What surprises is me is the complete elitism of knowledge that shows its ugly head when an article like this pops up. "Oh they didn't have modern science so they must have been complete n00bs and were just drinking 'magic beer' that sometimes helped." This is completely regardless of the fact that this is already centuries after Plato and Hippocrates or any other ancient looks into philosophy and medicine.
Could it possibly be, as you and the article suggest, that they had empirical knowledge of what they were doing? God forbid if that were true! /sarcasm
Re:I know nothing about this field of science (Score:5, Funny)
"must have been complete n00bs", well....they were called Nubians.
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Yeah, I wanted to make that joke too, but I'm too fed up by the cultural elitism (and no, I'm not new to /.)
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> Yeah, I wanted to make that joke too, but I'm too fed up by the cultural elitism
It is not elitism to fail to presume that Nubians had a contemporary notion of germ theory or chemistry or any notion of what an anti-biotic is.
Favoring the simplest explanation that requires the fewest overly-optimistic assumptions is also not "elitism".
Given how ancient societies actually ate and drank, there's a good chance that there as no observable effects of their behavior. It was simply too pervasive for many of the
Re:I know nothing about this field of science (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact Science is a protocol to make the most out of observations, but empirical knowledge is the superset of experimental knowledge. Science supersedes it but empirical knowledge works for humans and animals since the dawn of time.
Besides, Science is about experimentation, publication, replication and validation of result, theories forming or being demolished because of such results.
But now?
We have NDAs, patents, trade secrets, corporate manipulation of the media,this is not the scientific process, this is a religion in disguise. "Believe our results".
To the guy dissing herbs, the origin of the medicament is irrelevant all it matters is its efficiency. If penicillin can cure and amanita muscaria can kill, natural stuff can have dramatic effects on health, obviously.
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Wasn't the discover of penicillin similar to this empirical discovery? Someone (Fleming) accidentally noticed that bacteria didn't grow around penicillin mold decided that this could work inside the body. As the time penicillin was discovered, we had little knowledge of how it actually worked.
The difference between the Nubians and modern researchers is peer review. Fleming originally thought that penicillin was not useful to treat illness because it was quickly secreted by the body and thus reducing its eff
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>Someone (Fleming) accidentally noticed that bacteria didn't grow around penicillin mold decided that this could work inside the body. As the time penicillin was discovered, we had little knowledge of how it actually worked.
No. This is bullshit. Fleming was a scientist who was studying bread-mould (as a fungus) to learn more about it. Among other things he did was to try and determine what sort of defense mechanisms it has (after all the defense mechanisms an organism evolves give good insights into it's
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Wasn't the discover of penicillin similar to this empirical discovery?
It was "similar" in the sense that "human beings observed a pattern. Otherwise it was completely different both because of context and response.
Contextually, Flemming was working in an environment where he had a large body of well-established empirical fact to work within, notably the germ theory of disease, which had only been fully established for about thirty years when he made his discovery.
In terms of response, Flemming published his work and gained enough attention that others started thinking hard a
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> for every piece of evidence of someone using a natural remedy which
> science today validates, there is an ocean of examples of people
> using remedies that either did nothing or were counter-productive,
> even fatal
The same goes for FDA approved pharmaceuticals.
Caveat Emptor applies no less for the "more sophisticated" stuff.
It's all ultimately snake oil because regardless of what they are
trying to sell you, they are all snake oil salesmen and act in
exactly the same way. They will subvert scienc
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Science - If you do this it does this, Because....
Empirical - If you do this it does that, it doesn't matter why
Chewing willow bark can ease toothache, but most of the Willow bark is unnecessary it's just the salicylic acid that does the job ...
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Could it possibly be, as you and the article suggest, that they had empirical knowledge of what they were doing?
They probably had emprical knowledge, given the high doses of tetracycline found in the bones, but empirical knowledge of what? They certainly didn't have "empirical knowledge of anti-biotics" because they had no concept of "anti-biotics", nor any of the foundational concepts it depends on, like the germ theory of disease.
Curiously, the Wisdom of the Old supposedly includes knowledge of life after death, mysterious "energies" that flow through the body (chi and all that) and so on, but somehow missed the r
Not eliteism - just being rational (Score:2)
It's not that they didn't have "modern science" - whatever that means. It's that there is no evidence of well controlled experimentation and statistical methods. Without those much of western medicine would be stuck in the stone age too. The only two compounds that I know of that showed empirical use in the history of Western medicine are Quinona bark as an anti-malarial and Salix for pain releif. However if you look at even the early accounts of Salix use you'll see th
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I recall reading that Egyptian mummies were found with traces of moldy bread on wounds, so they probably did have a knowledge of antibiotics in Africa. Many (like Ramses II) also had traces of cocaine and tobacco, indicating they likely had contact with the Americas - that or the formerly verdant parts of the Sahara were capable of growing coke and tobacco and eventually the plants died off there.
Western Europeans like to think they discovered numerous things like, say, the earth is round or that it revolve
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All this would mean is that they noticed they got better after drinking beer, which makes sense.
I certainly feel better after drinking beer...
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3: Maybe they just really liked their beer which is why so many of them drank it.
Yeap, and they used to feed their kids heaps of beer on regular basis (??!).Or maybe they weren't their kids after all? [google.com.au] (hint: search for "nubians" on the page and read around a bit).
My point is: generating hypotheses (and verifying them) is quite risky when the cultural/ethical/time distances are huge.
BTW: does anyone know how stable the tetracyclines are in hydrofluoric acid?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
to try and cure him... to try to cure him.... which sounds better to you?
The latter... if you're Hannibal Lector.