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posted by chromas on Thursday July 30 2020, @10:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_BAHyVvJIQ dept.

Medieval medicine remedy could provide new treatment for modern day infections:

Antibiotic resistance is an increasing battle for scientists to overcome, as more antimicrobials are urgently needed to treat biofilm-associated infections. However scientists from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick say research into natural antimicrobials could provide candidates to fill the antibiotic discovery gap.

Bacteria can live in two ways, as individual planktonic cells or as a multicellular biofilm. Biofilm helps protect bacteria from antibiotics, making them much harder to treat, one such biofilm that is particularly hard to treat is those that infect diabetic foot ulcers.

[...] Building on previous research done by the University of Nottingham on using medieval remedies to treat MRSA, the researchers from the School of Life Sciences at University of Warwick reconstructed a 1,000-year-old medieval remedy containing onion, garlic, wine, and bile salts, which is known as 'Bald's eyesalve', and showed it to have promising antibacterial activity. The team also showed that the mixture caused low levels of damage to human cells.

They found the Bald's eyesalve remedy was effective against a range of Gram-negative and Gram-positive wound pathogens in planktonic culture. This activity is maintained against the following pathogens grown as biofilms:

  1. Acinetobacter baumanii—commonly associated with infected wounds in combat troops returning from conflict zones.
  2. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia—commonly associated with respiratory infections in humans
  3. Staphylococcus aureus—a common cause of skin infections including abscesses, respiratory infections such as sinusitis, and food poisoning.
  4. Staphylococcus epidermidis—a common cause of infections involving indwelling foreign devices such as a catheter, surgical wound infections, and bacteremia in immunocompromised patients.
  5. Streptococcus pyogenes—causes numerous infections in humans including pharyngitis, tonsillitis, scarlet fever, cellulitis, rheumatic fever and post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis.

All of these bacteria can be found in the biofilms that infect diabetic foot ulcers and which can be resistant to antibiotic treatment. These debilitating infections can lead to amputation to avoid the risk of the bacteria spreading to the blood to cause lethal bacteremia.

Journal Reference:
Jessica Furner-Pardoe, Blessing O. Anonye, Ricky Cain, et al. Anti-biofilm efficacy of a medieval treatment for bacterial infection requires the combination of multiple ingredients [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-69273-8)


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @10:54PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @10:54PM (#1028961)

    Garlic and Onions are already known to have antimicrobial properties.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @12:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @12:46AM (#1029040)

      In India, the bandaid's gauze is coated with turmeric powder for its antibiotic property.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:29AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:29AM (#1029046)

      And also anti-social properties, i.e. Say goodbye to your social life.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:50AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:50AM (#1029060)

        Clean your tongue, brush your teeth.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:54AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:54AM (#1029161)

          Get a fresh garlic clove. Wash your hands thoroughly then crush the clove and hold the mess tightly in one or both fists. After about 10 minutes you will begin to taste garlic. The smell isn't just from not cleaning your teeth, garlic can travel through the body and leak out the pores and lungs.
          Despite that, the bad 'garlic' smell is from poor hygiene. Pure garlic doesn't smell bad, just strong. It provides a good carrier base for bad smells, much the same way ambergris provides a base for perfume.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Opportunist on Thursday July 30 2020, @10:55PM (2 children)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Thursday July 30 2020, @10:55PM (#1028962)

    2001 BC Here, eat this root.
    1000 AD That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
    1850 AD That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
    1920 AD That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
    1945 AD That pill is ineffective. Here, take this penicillin.
    1955 AD Oops... bugs mutated. Here, take this tetracycline.
    1960-1999 AD 39 more “oops”... Here, take this more powerful antibiotic.
    2000 AD The bugs have won! Here, eat this root.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by istartedi on Friday July 31 2020, @06:08AM (1 child)

      by istartedi (123) on Friday July 31 2020, @06:08AM (#1029162) Journal

      How do I get root privilege?

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:31PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:31PM (#1028987)

    It's traditional herbal medicine, not "medieval medicine."

    We all have our version, European, Indian, African, Chinese, Amazonian, etc. etc. Some actually work, others are quackery.

    Aspirin is a prime example. It was a folk medicine of ground willow tree bark. Bayer turned that into Aspirin, a "modern" medicine.

    Artemisin, a drug against malaria, is another prime prime example.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:53PM (#1029014)

      Just modernize the packaging.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @05:00AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 31 2020, @05:00AM (#1029134) Journal

      Yes, that.

      Over the course of thousands of years, healers of various persuasions tried a lot of things. Some worked better than others. And, sure, there were plenty of snake oil salesmen who swindled hopeful people out of their hard earned currency. But, the snake oil salesmen don't negate all the things that more serious healers learned.

      And, the fact that modern man with his science has mostly turned his back on thousands of years of learning doesn't negate that learning either.

    • (Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:20PM

      by Taibhsear (1464) on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:20PM (#1029743)

      Determining the medicine from the quackery is a field called Pharmacognosy [wikipedia.org].

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:38PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:38PM (#1028996)

    But what do you do if you are infested with demon sperm?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:42PM (#1029004)

      Become a demoncrat.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @11:45PM (#1029008)

      Watch Japanese tentacle porn.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @05:01AM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 31 2020, @05:01AM (#1029136) Journal

      Wait nine months to get rid of it? What I want to know is, do women really dream of monster dicks from hell?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:39PM (#1029439)

        Depends on what they are married to. Lots of women married to gun-nuts probably have such dreams.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:04AM (#1029137)

      Purification by fire.
      Purification by water.
      Purification by air.
      Purification by earth.
      Purification by ether.
      Purification by prayer.
      Purification by violation.
      Purification by fast.
      Purification by Vegemite. (Don't ask.)

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:39AM (#1029051)

    A forestry guy I used to work with got wounded in the forest and his leg got infected with flesh-eating disease. They tried massive doses of antibiotics, then hyperbaric chamber. As he was about to lose his leg, in last resort they put maggots in the wound. The little buggers ate every single piece of infected dead tissue in a matter of hours. He was released from the hospital five days later. He still had his leg.

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