Thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon recipe kills MRSA superbug

CNN ^ | March 31st, 2015 | Nick Thompson and Laura Smith-Spark

[MinorityRepublican]

It might sound like a really old wives' tale, but a thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon potion for eye infections may hold the key to wiping out the modern-day superbug MRSA, according to new research.

The 10th-century "eyesalve" remedy was discovered at the British Library in a leather-bound volume of Bald's Leechbook, widely considered to be one of the earliest known medical textbooks.

Christina Lee, an expert on Anglo-Saxon society from the School of English at the University of Nottingham, translated the ancient manuscript despite some ambiguities in the text.

"We chose this recipe in Bald's Leechbook because it contains ingredients such as garlic that are currently investigated by other researchers on their potential antibiotic effectiveness," Lee said in a video posted on the university's website.

[Carthego delenda est]

That’s pretty neat!