Anglo-Saxon remedy better than modern day antibiotics.

[RyanA]

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/re ... lsignoutmd

Just spotted this on MSN and it really interested me! Great stuff. In a summary though, they found an Anglo-Saxon medicine made of wine, garlic, and bile from a cow's stomach, and have tested it on MRSA and other infections. The medicine wipes out 90% of the infection or more and outperforms the modern day medicine for the same infections.

[Medicus Matt]

It's brilliant that this has pushed a 9th century Old English medical text into the limelight but it's worth bearing in mind that:-

a) It's nothing new. Cameron, in his "Anglo Saxon Medicine " (in 1996) had already established that the stye cure would be effective against Gram-positive bacteria such as staphylococci (and a team from UEL were looking at remedies from Bald, the OEH and the Lacuna which killed off MRSA in 2013). Just putting an acidic wine into a copper alloy pot for nine days and then smearing that on the infection would have worked.

b) What they've demonstrated is that something that they've made whilst attempting to copy an Old English recipe with modern ingredients has antimicrobial properties. Why they didn't use a copper alloy vessel is a mystery (because their reasoning is nonsense) and you'd have thought that you'd do some research into alloy composition of the period before dangling bits of brass in a glass vessel.

I've made it before and it does pong a bit (as you'd expect, garlics mixed with stale wine, left to fester for 9 days)...I wonder if I can persuade someone to let me smear it on them now.

[guthrie]

Oddly enough the word "brass" back then meant a copper alloy, but not specifically copper/ zinc. More usually tin with a bit of lead.

[arjaycruz100]

interesting this somewhat vindicates and justifies claims by practicioners of natural medicines

[gregory23b]

Not as such because it involves artifice, ie using copper etc to create a medicine, not simply a use of ready ingredients. A lot of medicines are preparations, by definition not-natural. Modern aspirin is no less 'natural' just because it comes in tablet form.

[guthrie]

Not as such because it involves artifice, ie using copper etc to create a medicine, not simply a use of ready ingredients. A lot of medicines are preparations, by definition not-natural. Modern aspirin is no less 'natural' just because it comes in tablet form.

Actually modern aspirin is a slightly different molecule than the original, so that it has less side effects and is more effective.
Those interested in the natural versus artificial debate in the medieval period can read "Promethean Ambitions" by William Newman.