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When a 1000-year-old medieval recipe breaks down an antibiotic-resistant film

Since the discovery and widespread use of antibiotics, the most dangerous bacteria have also adapted to survive. And currently, a large number of antibiotic molecules have become ineffective against these microorganisms. This is the famous antibiotic resistance that we hear more and more often.

Indeed, Jessica Furner-Pardoe, from the University of Warwick (England), and her team encountered this problem in their research. Indeed, a biofilm showed resistance to all kinds of contemporary antibiotics. Which forced them to turn to ancient medicine, to try to find an alternative.

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And it was in one of the first medical manuscripts of medieval England, Bald’s Leechbook, that this team of scientists found the solution. The work of Jessica Furner-Pardoe and colleagues has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

A medieval grimoire filled with unusual recipes

Bald’s Leechbook is a medieval collection – dating from the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century – of various medicinal specialties and potions with absurd attributes, such as an ointment supposed to ward off goblins at night. In all of this, a recipe found in this book has proven to be incredibly effective.

Dubbed Bald’s Ointment, and dubbed the Old Biiotic by researchers, this blend including garlic, cow’s bile, wine, and onion and leek has excelled where our antibiotics, even the newest ones. , have failed. Simply incredible.

Indeed, this balm can easily overcome biofilms resistant to current antibiotics.

Bald’s ointment has been shown to be incredibly effective

During this study, researchers developed 75 Bald ointments to test the effects of this mixture. From the results obtained, Furner-Pardoe and his friends were able to demonstrate that Bald’s ointment was able to eradicate the most dangerous and tough bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as Staphylococcus aureus.

If the Staphylococcus aureus are also hard to exterminate with modern antibiotics, it is due to the fact that they are able to create biofilms. However, Bald’s ointment came to the end of it.

For precision, it should be known that to destroy these biofilms, a concentration of antibiotics 100 to 1000 times greater than that required with the floating forms of the bacteria is required.

A medieval recipe little exploited by modern science

The only weakness of Bald’s ointment is that when its ingredients are purified or used separately, they no longer pose a danger to bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus.

According to the researchers, this is probably the reason why this recipe has so far not been exploited by the scientific community. Indeed, nowadays, drug development requires the isolation of their unique compounds.

In light of this scientific achievement, it may be time to do it differently, just by mixing natural ingredients with proven effectiveness. Simply.




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