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Thousand-Year-Old Eye Salve Kills MRSA

Posted by Soulskill on from the even-when-you-run-out-of-ideas,-ideas-don't-run-out-on-you dept.

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.

1 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Copper and alcohol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Go read up on the likely and common side effects of:

    1) Vancomycin - fucks up your kidneys at levels above 10 micrograms/mL (.1 grams / liter)
    2) Untreated MRSA - fucks you up, as in dead.
    3) Copper - 2 mg/Liter is considered the "safe" level in your drinking water.

    So yeah, copper CAN fuck you up... but so can vancomycin, and vancomycin does so at much lower concentrations.

    As far as the other ingredients - leeks, garlic and wine may make your breath a little potent for a while, but people eat that shit daily, and love it.

    Given that MRSA is also *frequently* a skin infection, the route of topical treatment is also a great motherfucking idea, Einstein. And the fact that skin treated with Vancomycin and this remedy had comparable levels of reduction in MRSA load, no, it's NOT a stretch to say that it might be as effective as any modern remedy. In fact, it's kind of *exactly* as effective as modern remedies, based on this study.

    Jesus fuck, just because you know Python doesn't mean you know the first fucking thing about biochemistry or medicine.