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Ancient Brewmasters Made Medicinal Beer

古代酿酒大师将啤酒制成药

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.

1980年，一位科学家在紫外线显微镜下观察骨骼碎片时注意到这些骨骼发出了幽幽绿光——这种绿色荧光是骨骼含有四环系抗生素的一种标志。四环素类药物会与钙螯合，沉积在骨骼中。这本来没什么稀奇的。但这些骨头的来历可不简单——它们来自于1600多年前埋葬在苏丹的努比亚木乃伊，而科学家们直至1948年才发现了四环素。

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.

当时，其他的科学家认为这种抗生素可能是在这个努比亚人死后污染到骨头上的。因为四环素是由土壤中的一种细菌——链霉菌分泌而成。为了弄清真相，最近，有一位化学家从一名努比亚儿童木乃伊身上提取了部分骨骼，将其溶解于氟化氢，这种极具腐蚀性的酸可用于提取四环素。而骨骼提取物也符合四环素等化学特征——这一证据表明这种抗生素是在儿童成长过程中沉积于骨骼里的。该研究的分析报告发表在《美国体质人类学杂志》上。

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.

人类学家知道努比亚人精于酿造啤酒。如今，研究人员认为古代的啤酒酿造大师学会了将沾染有可产生抗生素的链霉菌的谷物掺入酿酒原料，特意使他们酿制的啤酒具有药性。想想看，这是多么美妙诱人的药方啊！

-Christopher Intagliata

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