The icky medieval remedy that kills MRSA
After suspecting a revival of a thousand-year-old medical recipe could kill MRSA, scientists from the UK tried it and found they were right, according to Smithsonian Mag.
After discussing with Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon scholar, microbiologist Freya Harrison became intrigued by a nasty recipe in Bald’s Leechbook, a thousand-year-old guide of medical advice and potions. The recipe, recommended to fight infected eyelash follicles, goes as follows:
“Take cropleek and garlic, of both equal quantities, pound them well together… take wine and bullocks gall, mix with the leek… let it stand nine days in the brass vessel…”
loading...
Harrison believed the mixture could actually have anti-bacterial properties, so she tried to replicate it as accurately as possible. She looked for heritage vegetable varieties, used historic wine and immersed brass into the mixture. She let the garlic-reeking brew to ferment for days, killing off soil bacteria that were introduced by the vegetables. “With the nine-day waiting period, the preparation turned into a kind of loathsome, odorous slime,” a colleague said.
In the end, the nasty mixture proved to be effective. When the team used the brew on scraps of MRSA-infected mouse skin, it killed 90% of the bacteria. The results are comparable to those of the leading antibiotic given to fight the superbug. Harrison and the team thought the eye salve might show a “small amount of antibiotic activity”, but they were “absolutely blown away by just how effective the combination of ingredients was,” according to BBC.
For those willing to recreate the brew at home, BBC offered a recipe:
- Chop and crush in a morthat equal amounts of garlic and another allium (onion or leek) for two minutes
- Add 25ml (0.87 fl oz) of English wine – taken from a historic vineyard near Glastonbury
- Dissolve bovine salts in distilled water, add and then keep chilled for nine days at 4C
Loading...