109 SMITH JOURNALAT FIRST GLANCE, CHRISTINA LEE
MAY SEEM AN UNLIKELY ACTOR IN
THE LIFE-AND-DEATH BATTLE TO
SAVE HUMANITY.
..........................................
An associate professor in Viking studies
at the University of Nottingham, Lee has
written books on such pressing matters as
Anglo-Saxon funerary rites, and teaches
classes on Old English and Old Norse
literature. Recently, though, the School of
English academic has been spending her
time investigating things crucial to more
than just our understanding of axe-wielding
Europeans. And her research may just help
solve one of the most pressing medical crises
we face today.
As a rule, universities tend to keep their
liberal arts and sciences departments well
apart. But in an unusual move, two of the
University of Nottingham’s main research
areas – molecular microbiology and early
medieval history – were recently brought
together to investigate antibiotic-resistant
superbugs: unstoppable bacteria currently
responsible for killing 700,000 people a
year. What do old Scandinavian pirates
and medieval Brits have to do with medical
problems? Quite a lot, it turns out.
The story of our current predicament begins
in 1928, when Alexander Fleming discovered
the first antibiotic, penicillin. It’s difficult to
overstate how important this development has
been to modern medicine. Without penicillin,
we would still be susceptible to the kinds of
bacterial plagues that routinely wreaked havoc
on the sick, and which could turn even paper
cuts into matters of mortal concern. But since
the 1940s, when mass-produced antibiotics
became widely available, we’ve been throwing
the miracle cure around willy-nilly. The fungus-
based medicine has even been mixed in with
animal feed, making it an almost unavoidable
staple in our diets. The result is that, over time,
antibiotics have become less and less effective as
bacteria have evolved to resist them.If things continue, we could be heading for the
stuff of nightmares – a world in which even
an operation for appendicitis would be too
risky, and something as simple as a scratch
could kill you. “Estimates suggest that over 10
million people will die of antibiotic-resistant
infections every year by 2050,” says Michael
Gillings, professor of molecular evolution at
Macquarie University. “This death toll will be
higher than deaths from cancer.”Little wonder, then, that researchers are
scrambling to find ways to combat the problem.
Scientists have been toiling away for some time,
but their slow progress in the face of impendingcatastrophe has led some to believe the answers
aren’t going to be found in laboratories alone.
This niggling feeling was what led a group
of scientists to walk over to the University of
Nottingham’s School of English and knock on
Lee’s office door. She remembers the stilted
awkwardness of the first encounter. “The
science people said, ‘In [the early medieval]
period, people must have had infections.’ And
I said, ‘Yes of course they did, and they died
of them.’ And they said, ‘Well, did they have
anything [to fight] against them?’”Lee didn’t have the answer, but she knew
where to look: inside the pages of a ninth-
century Anglo-Saxon manuscript called Bald’s
Leechbook, housed in the British Library.
One of the earliest known medical textbooks
in the English language, its three volumes
include ancient cures for everything from
baldness to demonic possession and spider
bites. Some of the suggested remedies are, by
our modern standards, bizarre to say the least.
For swollen eyes, the book suggests catching
a crab, cutting off its eyes and putting them
against the patient’s neck before chucking the
crustacean back in the water. Bald’s cure for
nosebleed involves ramming barley into the
ear, while the “turd of an old swine” smeared
on the affected area apparently works wonders
for shoulder pain.>>strange medicine
ARMED WITH GARLIC, GALLBLADDERS AND A VERY OLD
BOOK, A CRACK TEAM OF HISTORIANS ARE LOOKING TO
THE PAST TO SOLVE OUR MODERN MEDICAL WOES.Writer Alex Warren Illustrator George Wylesol