A recipe for a remedy for eye infections from a 10th Century medical volume called Bald's Leechbook, one of the earliest known medical textbooks, has been found to fight Staphylococcus aureaus, the antibiotic-resistant bacteria MRSA.
In its original Old English, the recipe -- which may date back even further, to the 9th Century -- called for two species of Allium (garlic and onion or leek), wine and bile from a cow's stomach. The topical potion was brewed in a brass vessel, strained and left to sit for nine days.
Researchers used fresh ingredients and made the potion according to the instructions, then exposed populations of bacteria to it. It obliterated the MRSA, killing 999 out of 1,000 bacterial cells.
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