Were the Egyptians first?

Our nephew Paul recently alerted me to an article that suggested a derivative of streptomycin, an antimicrobial first officially described in the 1940s, has been found in remnants of ancient Egyptian beer. Streptomycin is derived from a bacterium, streptomyces (pictured) that lives in soil. It would be possible that this bacterium got into beer and produced this antimicrobial! I am unable to confirm that the Egyptians used beer as a medicine, but it was so commonly drunk that perhaps it provided a "baseline" level of treatment against some pathogens, especially tuberculosis. It should be noted that derivatives of streptomyces such as tetracycline and erythromycin are still effective against many infectious diseases found in Africa. In my many visits there I have found the latter drug to be indispensable in treating infections. If I were a betting man, which I am not, I would bet that the therapeutic benefits of beer were known to prehistoric H. sapiens, who was as smart and perhaps even more creative and observant than modern man! He did, after all, invent the wheel. And beer itself!