Video: How a recipe for a potion from the Middle Ages became today the key to defeating a formidable infection
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
A thousand-year-old medieval potion called Bald's Eye Ointment is helping scientists cure infection in 2020! 10th century manuscripts have been found in the British Library. Scientists were stunned by this ancient medicine's ability to eradicate infections. A series of tests took place in the UK and the US throughout the past year.
This ancient recipe just opened the eyes of British scientists with its effectiveness! The potion contains wine, which is not surprising. In general, the recipe for the mixture is similar to the culinary one. The potion was made from ordinary products bought at the nearest supermarket or grocery store. The wine used was English white. The recipe included onions, garlic, bile salts. The latter were obtained from cows.
The drug has shown amazing effectiveness in the fight against "biofilms", which is, in fact, a persistent accumulation of bacteria. Usually this is a huge amount of bacteria accumulating in one place. Biofilms are a serious headache for doctors. To combat them, an antibiotic concentration of 100-1000 times higher than usual is required.
Unfortunately, these days infections are becoming more and more resistant to modern medicines. This potion from the dark ages was the death of the modern methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection. Scientists have been "stunned" by the lethal power of this ancient cure for eye infections dating back to the 10th century.
During a meeting of scientists with an interest in infectious diseases, Dr. Christina Lee, a specialist in Old English, spoke to microbiologists about Bald's Leechbook. This is an Anglo-Saxon medical textbook in the British Library. It contains remedies for the treatment of various infections and other diseases.
According to lead researcher Dr. Freya Harrison, a microbiologist at the University of Nottingham, this millennia-old drug has proven to be an "incredibly powerful" antibiotic. The individual ingredients alone did not have any measurable effect, but when combined, according to the ancient text, they killed up to 90 percent of the MRSA bacteria in infected mice. In infections grown in the laboratory, about one bacterial cell in a thousand survived.
“I still can't believe how well this millennial antibiotic really works. When we got the first results, we were just overwhelmed! We didn’t expect that at all.”Commented Dr. Harrison. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for General Microbiology in Birmingham and will soon be presented in the global scientific journal Nature.
“Modern research on cures for disease can benefit from ancient times and the knowledge that is mostly found in unscientific writings. But the potential of these texts in solving problems cannot be understood and fully appreciated without combining the experience of both art and science,”commented Dr. Li.
Thinking outside the box requires huge financial and, of course, human costs. According to experts, by 2050, about ten million people may become victims of this problem. Treating this infection costs the United Kingdom alone more than $ 1.3 billion each year."
The medieval period and its unusual treatments were previously studied by the University of Nottingham in connection with MRSA. Microbiologist Freya Harrison and company have picked up the baton over the past few years by publishing their findings in Scientific Reports.
Bald's eye ointment successfully defeated five bacteria that cause biofilm, including bacteria that cause diabetic foot infections and ulcers. If left untreated, they can lead to sepsis and amputation. What's especially intriguing is how this eye ointment works. Only the exact adherence to this combination of ingredients, according to the recipe, can work miracles!
Based on this medieval potion, according to Dr. Harrison, it is possible to develop a safe and effective antibacterial agent. There is already a similar historical precedent. Artemisinin is a malaria medicine that is derived from wormwood. The recipe was found in an ancient Chinese text. Without this, modern society would not have been able to fight this ailment so effectively. The Anglo-Saxon text also mentions wormwood as an effective remedy against malaria.
In the sterile conditions of a modern hospital, Mother Nature is often forgotten. The mighty power of this simple medieval potion and the list of its ingredients show that science and nature are inextricably linked.
Will Bald's Eye Ointment be on the same shelf in pharmacies as paracetamol and cough syrup? The marketing department is about to face a major challenge …
Read about one more curious fact from medieval history in our article why the Italians in the 17th century invented "wine windows", and how a plague tradition has revived today.
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