IFL Science reports that as a teenager, Archie was prescribed a drug known as minocycline to treat his acne problem. Doctors were able to trace the phenomenon back to this time in his life, as black bone disease has been known to occur after a rapid intake of the drug begins to turn one's bones entirely black. According to the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research, the disease is rarely ever encountered, and it certainly doesn't fail to shock the patient when they learn that they're essentially walking around with a black skeleton beneath their skin.
"Black pigmentation of bone by minocycline is thought to occur through ferric iron being bound to the oxidized drug in developing bone," a group of researchers shared after carrying out a meticulous study in 2012. "And via the accumulation of insoluble quinine from degradation of the aromatic ring of the drug in mature bone." That's a lot of scientific jargon, but essentially, the chemical reactions that take place in the bones after minocycline starts to absorb into the person's body causes them to turn black.
