Slashdot Mirror
Thousand-Year-Old Eye Salve Kills MRSA
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists at the University of Nottingham used a recipe from an ancient medical text to successfully kill golden staph bacteria, also known as MRSA, the superbug commonly found in hospitals. Bald's Leechbook calls for leeks, garlic, brass, wine and other ingredients to create an eye salve for curing an infected eyelash. The salve has been found to be effective in killing the MRSA at least as well any modern remedy.
"You won't believe what this weird thousand year old trick can do!..."
Really - should I quit even coming here for news? I haven't seen one item this week that wasn't on reddit for a day or more.
meh
what a weekend!
ahhh, now it makes sense, that MRSA have no reflection in the mirror...
It works "at least as well as any modern remedy."
And since modern remedies can't kill superbugs, we must assume this one can't either.
well when you think about it, having something that can be 'tested' by trial and error, over many years (only a thousand in this one, but i'm sure there are even lengthier examples) -- something that sticks around, probably has some use, even if it's opaque to us.
A couple of pretty toxic ingredients there. I suppose as a topical remedy you could use it. But saying it's as effective as any modern remedy sounds like a bit of a stretch.
The bacteria didn't see it coming.
Did you mean: wikileeks
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Link
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Killing bugs is easy. It's not killing everything else in the vicinity that makes it hard.
That's why antibiotics were invented in the first place.
I don't know why you get the idea that "ancient remedies" have to be a load of crap.
The idea of "let's try something, and if it works, keep doing it, otherwise try something else" wasn't invented last century.
There's no reason at all why an ancient remedy shouldn't work simply due to the fact of being an "ancient remedy".
Having said that, there's no reason why it _should_ work due to just being an "ancient remedy" either. If it works, It works because it works.
Reminds me of the plot to this book: http://www.goodreads.com/book/...
It is interesting one of the ingredients is cow bile. Definitely not something you would think of as an disinfectant. But, being from India, I know so many people who believe cow urine and cow dung has disinfecting properties. May be there is something to it. Cows digest tough vegetation. Their stomachs are full of bacteria that could break down vegetable matter. May be there are so many beneficial would-not-harm-a-mammal bacteria in there, some of them might fight of any bacteria that would infect its host, the cow.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
But are you willing to pour bleach on your eye? No? Well then...
Staphylococcus Aureus, aka "Golden staph" is not exactly synonymous with MRSA. The MR part means 'Methicillin Resistant', which is a mutated form of SA that can't be killed with Methicillin, a common antibiotic. SA is extremely common - it's everywhere, all over your skin, right now. It's only dangerous if it starts to infect a wound and gets into the bloodstream. Most SA will still respond to antibiotics, only the MRSA strain won't. But this strain is still thankfully fairly rare, though it's a growing problem. One solution would be for everyone to stop taking antibiotics for minor ailments such as the common cold which it does nothing for, but adds a lot of unnecessary antibiotics to the environment, thus prompting common bacteria such as SA to evolve into the MRSA form. If we lose the benefit of antibiotics, it will be a disaster, and we can thank all the stupid people for that.
and it keeps vampires away
Table-ized A.I.
We can not have people getting treated with inexpensive ingredients from their kitchens. That would be so uncivilized! Lucky thing we stopped red rice yeast for lowering cholesterol. Phew!
Your doctor doesn't want you to know aboyt this 500-year-old remedy for venereal disease.
Hint: it's mercury.
Not every old remedy is good for you. If you get into the history of medicine, you'll find lots of old remedies that are harmful.
Easy answer to that: Like most people, he's been programmed to think that only large companies can come up with something that works. If it didn't involve people with lots of fancy letters after their names, and billions of dollars, it must be shit, right? After all, big brand names and money are the only factors that give credibility these days.
Did you mean: wikileeks
Damn, ran out of mod points, but this is funny. Get to work vigilant moderators!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Antibiotics used to kill 90% of the bacteria too... until the remaining resistant 10% multiplied and suddenly the antibiotics weren't working so well anymore.
If it doesn't kill 100%, it's just another stop-gap measure until the next "ancient remedy resistant" version comes out... AMRSA?
A nurse that I had the honor to know contracted mrsa from a patient. Modern antibiotics would knock it down, mrsa constantly reappeared. It spread to her brain and my wife and I held her hand, prayed, and even though she appeared "out of it" a tear ran down her cheek just before she passed. She heard us praying for her, thus the tear. If a 1000 year old homeopathic medicine helps fight mrsa, why would anyone be against it? For Susan Schakel Jenks, my Chritian Sister.
It's funny how when a natural remedy cures a disease with proof to back things up, slashdot just brushes it aside and makes comedic remarks... pretty pathetic if you ask me.
What ever happened to science and accepting the facts at hand?
Someone has been watching the walking dead and heard Daryl Dixin claim leeks help keep mosquitos off of you.
My god the things you can learn on AMC!
Anyhow, it worked out very humorously this morning considering that the article is about ancient medicine.
How does a hair get infected?
Your doctor doesn't want you to know aboyt this 500-year-old remedy for venereal disease.
Hint: it's mercury.
Not every old remedy is good for you. If you get into the history of medicine, you'll find lots of old remedies that are harmful.
I don't know man, I haven't had any disease trepanning or a good blood letting couldn't deal with, well there was this one time where I had to drink a gallon or mercury to get over a...ahem..personal disease.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Personally, I've seen a lot of this. "Retro" in medicine not only is hip, but it actually works. And often better than synthesized medicine.
You have to know what you are doing though, which includes knowing what modern remedies acutally do and what they were originally built for.
Example: I treaded my reflux with healing earth and baking soda (Natriumhydrogencarbonat (German term)). The regular doctor would've given me super expensive PPI and the effect probably wouldn't have been half as good. It took me basically 3 days to get my acid levels back to normal.
Example 2: Healing Earth/Healing Clay. No more anti-biotics or synthesized remedies when I have stomach problems due to an infection or stress, thank you. This stuff has upped my health measurably ever since the local RPG dealer recommended it to me back in college. I've used it to externally treat neuro-dermitis, stomach problems and acidic cold sores. This stuff does wonders. For some people it's tough to swallow though. I usually take a heaped table-spoon of dry healing clay (grain size 1 or ultra-fine) and wash it down with a glass of water. You have to brush your teeth afterwards, otherwise you'll be scrunching on what feels like fine grained sand. ... Which it basically is, in a way. :-)
Example 3: Fresh onions and fresh pressed onion juice for treating ear or throat infections. It smells, but it works. The soothing effect is almost instant, no thinking what a synthesized remedy with that effect would have to do. I use onions marinated in honey as cough syrup - it's the best there is. It's a bit of a hassle to make, so I do use stuff from the store aswell when I need it and am low on time, but the self made stuff beats the stuff from the store in both effect and taste, hands down.
These are a few examples of old-school remedies that are measurably better that the stuff pharmaceuticals try to push on you. However, there is modern medicine that I do use, albeit as an 'educated patient'. Modern anti-hystaminica for instance has gotten pretty good and effective with negilible side-effects.
Bottom line: There are remedies that have been around for thousands of years and still are the best there is for treating certain conditions, perhaps also for the very simple fact that we've evolved around those things available to us. That, of cource, doesn't mean you should shun modern medicine entirely or go all-out homepathic or some other weird stuff.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
That's why you subject the ancient remedies to modern testing.
And even in cases where they're harmful, at the time it was probably better to suffer with the side-effects than have the original disease. It's no different today; every medication can have negative side effects; we're just better at designing and manufacturing drugs to minimize or eliminate these side effects than before.