WEBVTT - Invention Classic: Penicillin 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.400 Hey, Welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.160 I'm Joe McCormick, and we are bringing you a classic 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.720 episode of Invention today. This is an episode on penicillin 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:22.639 that originally published July nineteen. Yes, a fungal accident in 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.159 the early twentieth century that opened the door for the 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.800 medical wonders of the antibiotic age. So yeah, this was 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.360 a pretty fun one and an important one. So let's 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:37.479 just dive right in. Welcome to Invention, a production of 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:43.479 I Heart Radio. Hey, Welcome to Invention. My name is 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.360 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I know 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.239 you want to talk about D and D before we 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.839 get to the real subject, right, Well, I don't know. 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.800 I was thinking about doing it last. We can go 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.680 ahead and talk about it up front. Um. Yeah, Well, 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.680 in Dungeons and Dragons, uh, you of all these various 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:05.120 demon lords and uh, they rule over various sort of 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.000 portions of the of of the fiend population in the game. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:11.880 And there are two demon lords in particular that I 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.000 was thinking about in regards to today's episode. Uh, and 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.600 that that would be zug Boy and jubile X. So 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:23.360 Zugmy is the the demon Lord of fung Guy the 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.040 Queen of fun Guy the Master of decay, and then 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:31.920 opposing her Um Everett odds with her is jubile X, 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:34.640 the Faceless Lord, which is a god of oozas and 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.520 slimes and blobs, you know, all the the oozing, nasty 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.760 creatures of dungeons and dragons, and yeah, theyre they oppose 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.080 each other. They're in constant war with each other, and 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.720 in some campaigns like their forces and even there there, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.080 you know, embodied forms do battle with one another, and 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.760 it actually ties in a bit with the subject we're 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:59.840 talking about today of penicillin. Okay, so penicillin the fungus 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.520 that fights I don't know, would you call diseases slimes? Well, 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.960 I feel like jubile X, being the demon Lord of 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.560 oozes and slimes kind of makes it the demon lord 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.600 of of microbiology as well, and you know, microves and 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.000 uh and microbial illnesses. So okay, well, so today we're 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.799 going to be talking about penicillin. I guess maybe one 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:26.080 of the great real weapons of zog Tamoi. But this 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.000 this came up, I think because we've been talking about 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.639 fungus on our other podcasts on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.040 where we just finished recording a five part series on 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.680 psychedelics Yeah yeah, looking at fungal psychedelics and ongoing research 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.000 into how these substances could enhance our mental well being 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.760 and helping the treatment of the psychological issues. And one 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:46.359 of our big take homes was that these fun Guy 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.040 could help save lives and improve the quality of human life. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.519 But it would not be the first or only fun 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.200 Guy to do so, because we can certainly look to 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.120 various interactions between human hell, the different fungi species and 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.320 their use, and your aditional medicine. We can point to 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.120 various products including you know, products of fermentation, for instance, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.959 including alcohol. But there's an even better example of better 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.359 living through fungi and that's penicillin. Right, So today we're 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.160 going to briefly explore the invention of penicillin, which is 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.639 often cited as the first true antibiotic technology. Of course, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:26.440 antibiotics or medications that treat infections by killing, injuring, or 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.000 slowing the growth of bacteria in the body, and antibiotics 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:34.320 are a class of what you would generally call antimicrobial drugs, 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.840 medicines that kill microbes that present a threat to the body. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.880 Of course, an antibiotics generally fight bacterial infections, whereas you 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.200 could have others like antifungals that fight fungal infections or 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:50.520 anti virals that fight viral infections. Now, antimicrobials and antibiotics 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.480 are a gigantic subject area that we're of course not 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.280 going to be able to get into every nook and 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.520 cranny of the subject. But we hope we could have 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.720 an interesting introductory Introduct three discussion. Maybe come back to 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.920 antibiotics sometime again in the future, because it's a it's 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.480 a broad invention that has lots of little invention tributaries 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.440 throughout history. Yeah, but it is such a fascinating case 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:13.760 to look at and I think should make for a 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.920 great episode of invention here because for starters, it's it's 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:21.479 a twentieth century invention slash discovery. Often, of course, the 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.679 line between invision and discovery is a little bit gray, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.479 but we can, Yeah, we can pinpoint it and ultimately 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.960 like rolled out by or so, but so we can, 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:33.240 we can look to it. We can look at the 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.599 world before, we can look at the world after with 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.719 it with the sort of clarity that we don't always 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.120 have with certainly older or more ancient inventions. Exactly because 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.200 we always like to ask the question on this show, 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.240 what came before the invention? What what changed when this 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.640 invention came on the scene. Uh, And what came before 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.279 a widespread modern antibiotics was stupendous amounts of death and 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.479 misery from infectious disease in blood poisoning. I was wondering, like, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.760 is it even possible to to get stats on what 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.680 the world of infectious disease looked like before we had 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.719 antibiotics around the mid twentieth century. Yeah, I mean, to 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.440 a certain extent, a lot of the suffering is just incalculable. Um, 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.560 you know, especially if you go back and sort of 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.320 consider all of human history up to that point and 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.719 the various factors that that influenced infectious disease and injury, 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.240 you know, the eventually the rise of germ theory, but 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.240 also the things like the rise of cities and so forth. 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.040 But but luckily, yeah, since it was such a recent invention, 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.320 we have some pretty incredible stats on the matter. Um, 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.360 you know, suddenly thinks to this NW miracle drug diseases 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.119 that it simply ravaged the global population like syphilis could 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.080 be cured. The shadow of lethal infection no longer hung, 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.560 at least as heavily over every scrape, injury and war 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:57.000 wound and with wounds were often talking about sepsis, which 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.279 is a term that was used by a hypocrite days 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.000 back in the fourth century b c. Meaning blood rod 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.960 or blood poisoning UH, and he was referring more generally, 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.039 I think, to decay, but the term came to be 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.599 applied to blood poisoning, which arises when the body's response 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.560 to infection causes causes injury to its own tissue and organs. 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.720 But just prior to the twentieth century, infectious diseases accounted 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.680 for high morbidity and mortality rates around the world, even 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.919 in the industrialized world. According to W. A. Adgy in 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.400 the Treasure called Antibiotics from two thousand sixteen, the average 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:36.880 life expectancy at birth was forty seven years, forty six 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.400 and forty eight years from men and women, respectively, and 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.920 this was due to the dangers of smallpox UH, cholera UH, diphtheria, pneumonia, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.960 typhoid fever, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, syphilis, and a host of 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.359 other ailments that could afflict you. And then during the 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.760 antibiotic era that follow again, you know, arising in the 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.000 middle of the twentieth century, the leading cause of death 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.440 in the United States changed from communicable diseases to non 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:08.880 communicable diseases like cardio cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke, and 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.560 the average life expect expectancy at birth rose to seventy 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.040 eight point eight years. So the elderly were no longer 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.440 a mere four percent of the population, but grow to 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.960 become a whopping percent of the population. So you know, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.960 we're talking about, you know, profound changes, just two demographics 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.840 based on this new uh, this new invention. Yeah, the 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:30.960 change is huge. I mean, we live in a world 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.800 now where if you have access to high quality modern medicine, 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.840 and a lot of people don't, I mean that's mind. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.120 But if you have access to high quality, modern science 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.480 based medicine and you can get antibiotics and uh, and 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:45.920 you can get to a hospital or see a doctor, 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.560 you very likely have a good chance to beat most 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.480 of the common infectious diseases that people give unless you 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:55.560 have some kind of you know, like another condition that 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.480 exacerbates it or something. Before antibiotics, this was just not 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:03.400 that people just died from diseases that you catch, like 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.240 diseases that are common for people to catch all the time. Yeah, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.800 or you had certain diseases like syphilis that were virtually uncurable, 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.000 you know. And and some of the the cures that 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.040 were attempted were pretty horrendous, you know, and and and 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.760 had and and generally did not work, you know, talking 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.239 about like using mercury and so forth. And you mentioned 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.680 before contamination of wounds. I mean, this is just a 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.480 huge thing. Just like you know, you might, uh, you 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.920 might cut yourself while gardening and you die from it. Yeah, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.080 And Heaven forbid you undergo say medieval gall stone surgery 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.640 or something like that. Yeah. By the way, I think 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.240 tuberculosis has a you know, is a good example to 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.280 look at for some of these stats as well. According 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.040 to the c d C, t B was a leading 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.160 cause of death in the US in ninety prior to 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.920 the rollout of antibiotic therapy in nineteen hundred, a hundred 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.240 and ninety four of every hundred thousand US residents died 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.080 from the TB. Uh most were residents of urban areas. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.079 In nineteen hundred, the three leading causes of death in 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:12.520 the US word pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea and h enteritis, 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.160 which together with diphtheria caused one third of all deaths, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.559 and of these deaths, four percent were among children aged 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.480 less than five years old. Now to your point, and 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:28.640 not everybody has the access to antibiotics that say people 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.440 enjoy and say Europe in the United States. Um. Yeah. 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.679 TB remains a leading cause of death from an infectious 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.600 disease in many parts of the world, particularly the developing world, 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.920 and some antibiotic treatments or antibiotic assisted treatments are more 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.360 complicated and more difficult than others. I mean, I know 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.880 the treatment for TB is not as say easy as 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.960 the round of just orally administered antibiotics that you might 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:55.400 get for a standard bacterial infection. Right but it's suddenly 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.600 it was just heralded rightfully so as as a miracle 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.600 and engine when it came about. I saw an image 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.280 of of a sign, I think a garbage can ra 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.320 a mailbox from the mid twentieth century advertising that now 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.760 you can get GONA recured in in uh like four 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:17.160 hours thanks to the you know, these new developments in antibiotics. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.719 You know, it's just a it could be difficult to 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.440 put ourselves in that mindset, having grown up in the 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.200 wake of antihilotics, or at least most of us, most 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.640 people listening to this show. I was just thinking about 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:33.360 how many like US presidents died of infections of various 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.120 kinds UH that that seems like that would be a 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.520 very unusual thing to happen now. But like in the 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.040 eighteen hundreds, James Garfield got shot, but it wasn't the 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.080 initial gun shot that killed him. He lived for like 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.960 I think weeks afterwards. He got an infection in the wound. 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.880 I think because they were digging around with dirty hands 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.160 to try to get the bullet out of him, and 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.640 he and they didn't have antibiotics of course when he 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.640 got an infection, so he died. I think another U 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:00.720 S pro it was at William Henry Harrison, who I 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.240 think they think now died from probably like drinking fecal 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.760 contaminated water in the White House. Yeah, so many different 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.079 um UH injuries and infections were just far more likely 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.360 to be lethal with you know, without modern antibiotics to 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.760 step in and UH and EID in the fight. Now, 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.520 there were some things that were kind of like versions 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:25.720 of antibiotics or anti microbials from before the discovery of 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.640 penicillin in ninety eight. Yeah, the best example from the 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:33.760 period just immediate, immediately prior to penicillin would be the 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.240 sulfonamides or the sulfa drugs, And these were the first 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.840 antibacterials to be used systematically and they were synthesized in 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.480 nineteen thirty two in the German laboratories of bear A G. 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.000 Now you might be thinking about the timeline, like, wait 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.360 a minute, didn't we just say that penicillin was discovered 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.880 in twenty eight, But it took a long time after 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.360 the discovery of penicillin's uh antibacterial properties for it to 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.839 be made as a useful medical drive, Like it was 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.560 aking forty generally, that's the day you see for when 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:08.520 penicillin actually became an actionable thing in medicine. Uh So, Yeah, 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.880 before that, we had the sulfa drugs and it had 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:13.880 they had a rocky start, but they did prove very 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.040 effective in preventing wound infections during the Second World War. 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.400 They were used on both sides in the in the 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.240 form of sulfa pills and also sulfa powders that would 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.640 be sprinkled over a wound. So if you've ever watched 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.719 you know, some sort of period piece, so especially a 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:31.959 war piece from the twentieth century, and you see somebody 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.480 sprinkling powder over an injury, that is what that's supposed 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.400 to be. Sulfa drugs. They're not as effective as true 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.080 antibiotics like penicillin um and there are a number of 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.520 possible side effects that one that can take place, and 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.560 it also can't be used to treat syphilis, and it 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:53.040 also can't treat sulfa resistant infections. Now, of course, this 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.520 is also a twentieth century invention. So I was wondering, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.880 did anybody come up with any version of antibiotics or 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.880 photo antibiotics before the twentieth century. We know that penicillin 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.480 hadn't been discovered and isolated and made stable as a 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.719 useful medicine, But were there any thing's like antibiotics or 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.120 sort of precursors of antibiotics. Well, because in Game of Thrones, right, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.400 they have penicillin, don't they, Or they have some sort 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.600 of fantasy version of penicillin. I've never heard of that, 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.720 don't they They have something that the the the the 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.960 old Nasters would mention having to do with with bread 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.360 and mold or something. Didn't they I don't remember that. 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.520 I just remember people get cuts and then they get 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.800 infected and die, giving them milk of the poppy. I 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.079 mean they have milk of the poppy. Okay, our Game 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.360 of Thrones are are George R. Martin readers will have 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:42.480 to write in on that. But I vaguely remember there 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.920 being like allusion to something like uh, some sort of 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:51.360 mold based UH medicine that they were using. Uh. I 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:53.520 could be wrong in it. Well, I can't see that 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.160 being something that's thrown in there as a little aside, 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.000 but that like isn't widely recognized or used maybe UH. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.160 And it's interesting how that kind of parallels some interesting 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.839 pieces of evidence for proto antibiotic technology in the real world, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.559 even going back to ancient times. So I want to 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:17.360 look at the work of the Emory University bioarchaeologist George J. R. Meligos, 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.080 who is now deceased. I think he died inteen. But 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.520 he's interesting, interesting scholar, and he discovered something very curious 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.160 back in nineteen eighty. So the subject he was looking 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.200 at was a set of human bones from ancient Nubia, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:38.120 dating from between three fifty and five fifty C. And 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.640 so the bones came from Nubia, which is a region 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.240 of Africa along the Nile River but south of Egypt 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.360 in what would be modern day Sudan. And what these 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.720 bones showed was evidence that the people they belonged to 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:56.520 had been taking tetracycline. Now, tetracycline is not the same 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.040 as penicillin, but it is an antibiotic. It can be 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.640 used to all kinds of infections, from minor problems like 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.400 acne I think in concert with some other drugs, uh 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:10.120 to major diseases like plague or tularemia or even syphilis. 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:14.120 And tetracycline works primarily by binding to the ribosomes of 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.120 bacterial cells. Ribosomes are sort of the cellular factories. They 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.760 build proteins that are needed in order for organisms to 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.280 live and grow, and by binding to the ribosome, tetracycline 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.440 makes it difficult for the bacterium to create new proteins. 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.000 It was patented in the nineteen fifties and became widely 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.920 used in the second half of the twentieth century. Uh 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.000 So what was it doing in the bones of Nubian 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.400 people who live like seventeen hundred years ago. Well, our 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.920 Melagos and colleagues followed archaeological clues to identify the source 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.600 of the tetracycline, which was beer. Ah, of course beer 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.680 is another one of Ultimately it falls under zugmoise domain. 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.880 Oh yeah, though this is different because tetracycline is not 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.360 made from a fungus. It is actually an anti bacterial 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.160 that is a byproduct of some bacteria. Okay, so it's 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:09.080 a bacterial byproduct, but essentially so technically it's jubilex okay, 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:13.360 or point to jubile This is jubilex versus jubilex. Right, Well, 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.080 I mean that's going to happen with your damon law 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.800 inter Jubilan warfare. Uh So beer is made from fermented grain, 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.680 of course, and the fermented grain in this ancient Nubian 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.600 beer apparently contained the bacteria stripped to mices, which creates 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.840 tetracycline as a byproduct. But a question of course, so like, 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.080 were these traces of tetracycline in Nubian mummy bones a 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.240 sign of like a bad batch of beer they got 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.680 contaminated by accident, or were these people deliberately culturing their 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.480 beer with antibiotic producing bacteria, and so to look at 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.320 a study from the American Journal of Physical Anthropology from 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.560 two of which arm Lagos was one of the authors. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.560 The authors examine tetracyclin in skeletal remains from throughout this 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.960 period and the evidence indicates that the ancient Nubians were 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.520 consuming these antibiotics on a regular basis, and the authors 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:11.240 suggests that these ancient people were intentionally producing this medicine, 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.280 and this links up with some evidence from other ancient 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.439 peoples nearby, such as the Egyptians, that sometimes apparently used 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.600 beer as a treatment for conditions like gum disease and 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.560 other types of infections. And the author has even found 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:28.600 evidence of a four year old child whose skull contained 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.240 lots of tetracycline from this beer, suggesting that the child 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.160 had been fed high doses of of this like antibiotic beer, 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:38.960 perhaps in an attempt to cure an illness, maybe the 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.720 illness that killed him. And so the levels of tetracycline 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.359 residue found in the bones of these mummies is only 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.240 explicable if they were repeatedly consuming this antibiotic in their 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.000 diet and there are actually other archaeological remains that show 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.920 evidence of antibiotic use in the ancient world. For example, 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.480 samples taken from the fhemera of skeletons from the Doclay 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.600 oasis in Egypt from people who live sometime in the 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.919 late Roman period also showed evidence of the same thing 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:11.280 of tetracycline and the diet. And this consumption of tetracycline 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.240 is consistent with other evidence showing a relatively low rate 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:19.400 of infectious disease in Sudanese Nubia during that time period 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.000 and a lack of bone infections apparent in these remains 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.920 from the this oasis in Egypt. So it really does 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:31.400 look like people in ancient Africa discovered a somewhat effective 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.600 form of antibiotics centuries before the discovery of penicillin and 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.080 the isolation and mass production of focused anti microbial medicines. Now, 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.720 to be clear, I think like a beer that had 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.679 tetracycline content from from being cultured with bacteria like this 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.879 probably would not be as potent and focused and effective 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.480 as like the isolated compounds in the drugs you'd take 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.359 orally or through injection would be today, but it would 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.919 have some effect, and it appeared that it probably was 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.320 somewhat effective been fighting infectious disease. Right, And of course 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.679 they wouldn't know exactly what they had here, but they 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:08.080 knew they had some sort of beer that seemed to 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.399 some sort of of holy liquid that that that had 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.760 some sort of curative property to it. Exactly, I mean, 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:19.119 fascinating discovery from the ancient world. Another interesting fact, tetracycling 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.960 is relatively unique in that it leaves clear signatures in 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.200 the bones that can be discovered long after the person 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.440 has died. So other antibiotics don't leave these clear markers 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.320 like this that make it easy for archaeologists to detect. 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:37.040 So you have to wonder, like, are there were there 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:41.400 other cases of ancient peoples in various places in times 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.440 using some kind of antibiotics or bacterial or fungal cultures 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.400 uh to treat diseases like these ancient Nubian people were, 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.359 but that we don't have evidence of because it doesn't 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.000 show up in the bones like tetracycling does. Yeah, it 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.639 could have just been lost to history. I was reading 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.600 an interesting paper from Frontiers in Microbiology in two thousand 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.840 ten by ROOFS. Dam Aminov called a brief history of 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.240 the antibiotic era, lessons learned and challenges for the future, 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.239 and am and Off points out this unique quality of 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.920 tetracycline and notes just what I was basically just saying, 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:17.960 like how easy it would be for evidence of other 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.320 uses of antibiotics in the ancient world to be lost 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.520 to us, though he he also mentions that there are 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.560 other anecdotes from history about like cultural traditions that show 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:32.119 proto antibiotic technologies. And these other examples would include red 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.280 soils found in Jordans that are used for treating skin infections. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.119 It's been discovered that these soils contain some antibiotic producing organisms, 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:43.560 though I guess they're probably also some major risks in 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:47.560 applying soil to wounds, uh. And then also plants used 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:52.160 in traditional Chinese medicine that actually do have some antimicrobial properties. Yeah, 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:53.639 because one thing we have to remember is, like the 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:58.520 modern antibiotic effort is ultimately based in going out into 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:02.640 the natural world and finding these weapons that already exist 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:08.400 and then reusing them and adapting them for human medicine. 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.399 And you know, this is essentially what is going on 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.919 in traditional medicines as well. And it also means that 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.480 there are weapons out there that either have not been 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:21.080 discovered at all at all, especially in particularly vibrant ecosystems, 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.040 some of which, of course are threatened. All the more 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.360 reason to uh for for us to not decimate say 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.919 the rain forests or the deep ocean. But then there 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.320 are also things that may have been discovered to some 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.200 degree in the past but have been forgotten. Well yeah, 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.200 and that that does seem possible because despite all all 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:44.439 this evidence of ancient sort of proto antibiotic technologies, the 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.920 worldwide rates of death from infectious disease in the periods 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.439 for which we have data right before the invention of 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.880 modern antibiotics shows that humans generally did not have effective 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:58.600 antimicrobials in that period. So maybe some of this knowledge 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.560 was lost over time. Alright, well, on that note, we're 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.520 going to take our first break. But when we come back, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.960 we're going to return to the mold research of the 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:20.439 nineteenth century and ultimately to our key inventor here, Alexander Fleming. Alright, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.320 we're back now. We'll get to Alexander Fleming in a 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:27.639 minute with the discovery of penicillin. But Alexander Fleming was 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.639 not the first person to notice that there might be 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:34.680 some anti microbial properties of certain fung gui. That's right, 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:36.919 there was. There was work going on in this area 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.000 prior to Fleming. Fleming was was you know, picking up 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.120 on some of it. And uh, and really just overall 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:46.640 just our understanding of a fun guy in general was 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.879 was advancing. As we mentioned in our Psychedelics episodes. Uh, 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:51.879 you know, there was a time where we did not 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.960 recognize fun guy as being separate from the realm of 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:57.840 plants before we realized that it was a kingdom unto 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.960 itself and almost ultimately a kingdom that has a little 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.440 more in common with the animal kingdom than it does 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:07.080 with the plant kingdom. And uh, there are a lot 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:09.639 of talented folks working in this area, but one of 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.760 them might come as a surprise to a lot of people. Um, 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.760 and that's because her name was Beatrix Potter. Uh, the 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:22.200 bunny Rabbit, the bunny rabbits, Yes, off the bunny rabbit fame. Uh. 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:24.760 That was It was kind of a curious coincidence because 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:27.399 I was reading about all this and then just randomly 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:29.680 on the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module, which 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:31.919