Another BBC news article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-32117815).
Scientists at the University of Nottingham re-created an "eye salve" from an Anglo-Saxon medical manuscript - the ingredients are garlic, onion, wine and "bovine salts" (apparently from a cow's stomach). They then tested it on MRSA, and found it killed up to 90% of the bacteria.
Thats pretty cool. Excuse me for a moment, off to rub some garlic and onion into my eye.
It also said the standard treatment did about the same - though I guess the salve might well be cheaper to manufacture?
What is the standard treatment?
I'd originally read this in a different article, here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27263-anglo-saxon-remedy-kills-hospital-superbug-mrsa.html#.VRnvHPnF__H
QuoteThe potion was tested on scraps of skin taken from mice infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This is an antibiotic-resistant version of the bacteria that causes styes, more commonly known as the hospital superbug MRSA. The potion killed 90 per cent of the bacteria. Vancomycin, the antibiotic generally used for MRSA, killed about the same proportion when it was added to the skin scraps.
So Vancomycin, apparently. :)
Well it seems that is a naturally occurring antibiotic and all they have to do is grow it.
Jubal: thanks for posting the New Scientist article - it makes rather more sense now. It's interesting that brass is required - this isn't mentioned by the BBC article. It suggests to me that the active agent includes copper, especially as copper and its compounds are known to have biocidal properties.
It certainly indicates there could be some interest in finding out whether other ancient & medieval cures work...
Moar bloodletting!