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Medieval potion able to kill superbug MRSA

"We were genuinely astonished at the results of our experiments in the lab," said researcher Christina Lee.

By Brooks Hays

BIRMINGHAM, England, March 31 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of Nottingham have resurrected a 1,000-year-old remedy for eye infections to combat a modern superbug. It turns out a Medieval Anglo-Saxon potion is capable of killing the antibiotic-resistant bacterium known as MRSA.

The 10th century potion's recipe -- which includes two species of Allium (garlic and onion or leek), wine and oxgall (the stomach bile of cow) -- is sourced from Bald's Leechbook, thought to be one of Western civilization's earliest known medical textbooks. An Old English leather-bound manuscript of the text was located in the British Library.

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"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," Christina Lee, a professor at the School of English at the University of Nottingham, explained in a video published by the university.

"And so we looked at a recipe that is fairly straightforward," Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert, aded. "It's also a recipe where we are told it's the 'best of leechdoms' -- how could you not test that? So we were curious."

Lee recruited colleagues from Nottingham's Center for Biomolecular Sciences to recreate the ancient potion. Four fresh batches of the potion -- brewed in a brass vessel as mandated by the text -- were tested on a common MRSA strain, Staphylococcus aureus, both in synthetic wounds and infected mice wounds.

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While none of the ingredients alone proved effective, when combined as directed by Bald's Leechbook, the potion killed the bacterium with remarkable success -- eliminating 999 MRSA cells for every one survivor.

Scientists also found that diluted forms of the potion did not kill the bacterium, but did disrupt the ability of the cells to communicate with each other. Researchers believe interfering with bacteria's quorum sensing, its cell-cell communication process, may be a key strategy for combating infection in the near future.

"We were genuinely astonished at the results of our experiments in the lab," Lee said. "We believe modern research into disease can benefit from past responses and knowledge, which is largely contained in non-scientific writings."

"But the potential of these texts to contribute to addressing the challenges cannot be understood without the combined expertise of both the arts and science," she concluded.

A reproduction of the experiment at Texas Tech University produced similarly promising results.

"We know that MRSA infected wounds are exceptionally difficult to treat in people and in mouse models," said Texas Tech researcher, Dr. Kendra Rumbaugh. "We have not tested a single antibiotic or experimental therapeutic that is completely effective; however, this 'ancient remedy' performed as good if not better than the conventional antibiotics we used."

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The new research was presented this week at this year's Society for General Microbiology Annual Conference, held in Birmingham, England.

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