Drug of Alcohol Discovery

Drug of Alcohol Discovery
The most widely consumed drug is, of course, alcohol. It is not surprising that alcoholic beverages were among the earliest of drugs to have been discovered since their effects must have been readily perceived within a short period of administration.

This remained a basic necessity to drug discovery until isolation and testing of active ingredients from plants in the nineteenth century.

When toxic effects also occurred with little delay, the drug was considered to be poison. However, if these were not manifest until a considerable time had elapsed, there was little likelihood they would be connected with the drug. This remains a problem for those who consumed herbal remedies, but it also applies to modern synthetic drugs.

In recent years, thousands of people were prescribed dugs such as thalidomide, benoxaprofen, practolol and others without anyone being aware of the damage these caused of the delay before it happened.

It was left to astute physicians to detect the link between theses drugs and their toxic effects.

Alcohol appears to have first been consumed in the form of wine. Evidence of wine being available over seven thousands years ago has been obtained from chemical analysis of yellow residues found in six vessels sunk in the floor of a mud brick building of the Neolithic Hajji Firuz Tepe village unearthed in the Zagros Mountain of western Iran.

The capacity of each vessel was nine liters, indicating that organized production had taken place.

Infrared, high performance liquid chromatographic and chemical analysis of the yellow residue indicated that consistent largely of calcium tartrate together with resin from the terebinth tree.

The calcium tartrate could only have come from grape juice as there is no other common natural source.

The juice would have fermented into wine on storage, while resin served as a preservative to prevent despoliation by bacteria that convert wine to vinegar.

Excavations further south in the Zagros Mountains uncovered a military center known as Godin Tepe, where earthenware jars form 3500 to 3000 BC were found. Again, deposited of calcium tartrate were present. By this time wine and beer were being prepare prepare throughout the Aegean.
Drug of Alcohol Discovery