A 1000-Year-Old Textbook Provides Effective Remedy to Treat MRSA Infections

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium that causes infections in various parts of the body. MRSA is difficult to treat as it is resistant to some commonly used antibiotics. An Anglo-Saxon medical textbook, Bald’s Leechbook (also known as Medicinale Anglicum), could hold the key to defeating MRSA. The potion, which includes wine, garlic, and bile from a cow’s stomach, could kill more than 90% of MRSA bacteria in infected mice in laboratory grown infections. Freya Harrison from the University of Nottingham and lead researcher said, "The thousand-year-old remedy has proven to be an ’incredibly potent’ antibiotic. The individual ingredients alone did not have any measurable effect but when combined according to the ancient text, they killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria in infected mice and in infections grown in the laboratory, only about one bacterial cell in a thousand survived. This one thousand year old antibiotic actually seems to be working really well, when they got the first results they were just utterly dumbfounded as they did not see this coming at all."

Kendra Rumbaugh, a microbiologist at Texas Tech University who was part of the research team, said, "These types of wound infections are very difficult to treat, and given that most of the agents they have previously tested displayed little to no efficacy. However, this ’ancient’ solution performed better than the current ’gold standard’ (vancomycin) and killed more than 90% of the MRSA in the wounds."

Source-Medindia