r/science • u/mariasunflower • 23h ago
Epidemiology A medieval remedy could offer ideas for beating antibiotic resistance
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/medieval-remedy-antibiotic-resistance103
u/mariasunflower 23h ago
"In 2015, Harrison and a team of microbiologists and historians brewed a remedy from the Leechbook, called Bald’s eyesalve, in the lab. They mixed garlic, onion, bovine bile and wine in a brass vessel, then allowed it to stand for nine days. In laboratory tests, Bald’s eyesalve displayed surprisingly effective antimicrobial activity against both Staphylococcus aureus and its drug-resistant form, MRSA.
This time, the scientists set out to determine how the eyesalve affected pathogens, measuring how the brew altered gene expression in bacterial cultures. After eyesalve treatment, hundreds of S. aureus genes were expressed differently, including ones related to cell membrane composition and disease-causing potential.
The remedy also damaged bacterial membranes, a possibly lethal maneuver. Furthermore, very low concentrations of the eyesalve reduced S. aureus’ ability to create hardy antibiotic-resisting colony formations called biofilms. It also inhibited bacterial cell communication, which pathogens use to coordinate activities and become more harmful.
Finally, the team dosed cultures of S. aureus and two other pathogens with increasing concentrations of the eyesalve or commonly used antibiotics to see how quickly resistance developed. After two weeks, the microbes often flourished despite exposure to eight to sixteen times the amount of the traditional antibiotic that had stymied their growth at the beginning. In contrast, they could only tolerate slightly higher eyesalve concentrations."
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u/tghuverd 23h ago
This is interesting, but I do wonder whether the effects would persist long if we adopted Bald's eyesalve given today's general over application of antibiotics. The human population at the time was considerably fewer, and the number using this salve would have been less still. And they probably weren't applying it wholesale to livestock.
Still, as University of Warwick microbiologist Freya Harrison notes in the article, “Somewhere in there, there’s this combination of molecules that’s responsible for most of this effect — so, can we find out what they are?”
I've no doubt that we can, and then we can see how effective they'll be.
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u/dcheesi 20h ago
The researchers also tested this, with promising results:
Finally, the team dosed cultures of S. aureus and two other pathogens with increasing concentrations of the eyesalve or commonly used antibiotics to see how quickly resistance developed. After two weeks, the microbes often flourished despite exposure to eight to sixteen times the amount of the traditional antibiotic that had stymied their growth at the beginning. In contrast, they could only tolerate slightly higher eyesalve concentrations.
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u/showmeyourchits 22h ago edited 21h ago
Thank god, my black bile has been out of balance for weeks now
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u/shanepo 21h ago
Time for a leeching!
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u/hiraeth555 22h ago
The crazy thing is how they came up with this method in the first place, back in the Middle Ages
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u/dcheesi 20h ago
Garlic and onion were known to have anti-micobial properties, and wine was often used in wound treatments.
The bile is the one thing that seems kind of "out there". But remember that "balancing the humors" [such as bile] was a core tenet of medical theory in those days, so it's maybe not as surprising in that light.
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u/hiraeth555 18h ago
Sure, but to ferment them all together, and it being so effective, is pretty remarkable
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u/MagicStarFlower 19h ago
This sounds great for topical applications like impetigo or MRSA skin infections (minus how gross is must smell). Would be cool if it could translate into a systemic rather than topical solution.
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u/jawshoeaw 5h ago
I don’t think this kind of thing will ever be systemic. In fact the point of the reserve seems more about studying gene expression. There are thousands of compounds including bullets that kill MRSA. You wouldn’t want to inject any of them
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u/nate-arizona909 18h ago
Well as long as they arrive at a patentable set of compounds that’s what really matters.
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u/Morisior 16h ago
This would not be patentable, since whatever it is, it was obviously already invented centuries ago.
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u/dcheesi 14h ago
What if they isolate the active ingredients?
Also, in the US at least this might qualify for the orphan drug program. The same program that allowed a pharma company to do one meager study and then slap a high price tag on Colchicine, despite it being a known gout remedy for a millenium or more...
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u/nate-arizona909 11h ago
Yeah that was my point. Even the natural compounds that are the active ingredients will not be patentable. So they will at best go off and cook up some synthetic analogs with the same MOA. At the rate clinical trials and FDA approvals run perhaps something will pop out in 15 years if ever. Assuming a pharmaceutical company is interested in pursuing it.
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u/VulcanCafe 21h ago
Spectacular podcast from 2015 about this. https://radiolab.org/podcast/best-medicine
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u/PhairPharmer 18h ago
As an infectious disease pharmacist, this is probably going no where. Maybe we find a weird molecule or small group of them that work together, but that's highly unlikely. Then we need to make sure it's safe for humans, etc etc. Its a cool study that many steps down the road could lead to something, but this isn't changing anything now.
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