13/07/2025
A 1,000-year-old recipe from an Anglo-Saxon medical book has been recreated by scientists, and it has proven effective against modern superbugs.
The remedy comes from a 10th-century AD manuscript known as Bald's Leechbook, one of the earliest known medical textbooks.
The recipe for this "eyesalve" calls for garlic, onion or leek, wine, and oxgall, which is bile from a cow's stomach. 🧅🧄
The instructions are very specific. The ingredients must be brewed in a brass vessel and then left to sit for nine full days before being used.
In 2015, a team of researchers from the University of Nottingham decided to put this ancient medicine to the test against one of the toughest bacteria we face today.
They were stunned by the results. The medieval potion was highly effective at killing Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA.
In their tests, the remedy wiped out nearly all of the bacterial cells. Only about one in every thousand MRSA bacteria managed to survive contact with the mixture.
This discovery suggests that people in the medieval period knew more about treating infections than they are often given credit for, and that ancient texts may hold more answers for modern problems. 🙏
