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Among all these strange concoctions, Lee
remembered one that at least gelled slightly with
modern research – a reasonably straightforward
treatment for eye infections involving
ingredients Lee knew had potential antibiotic
properties. In Old English the treatment reads:
Wyrc eagsealfe wiþ wænne: genim cropleac 7
garleac begea emfela, gecnuwa wel tosomne,
genim win 7 fearres geallan begean emfela,
gemeng wiþ þy leaces, do þonne on arfæt, læt
standan nigon niht on þæm arfæt, awring
þurh claþ 7 hlyttre wel, do on horn 7 ymb niht
do mid feþere on eage; se betsta læcedom.
Curious, Lee set about translating the
passage. “There were a couple of words
that were ambiguous,” remembers Freya
Harrison, a microbiologist who worked
with Lee on the project, which now goes
by the name AncientBiotics. ‘Cropleek’, for
instance, could mean leek, garlic or shallots.
“We had to think about what ingredient
was meant by those words.” The team
investigated which plants would have been
most commonly found at the time and
compiled a best-guess ingredient list.
With their translation complete, the
AncientBiotics crew recreated the recipe as
faithfully as possible. They used heritage
varieties of garlic and onion, and bile from
the gallbladder of a cow. In an attempt at
authenticity, Harrison even managed to
source wine from a vineyard that has been
around since the ninth century. “Bald gives
very precise instructions for the ratios of
different ingredients, and for the way they
should be combined and stored,” Harrison
says. In this case, the instructions specified
that the ingredients be mixed and left to
stand in a brass vessel for nine days, then
strained through a cloth.
This is where Bald and the AncientBiotics
team parted ways. Brass and cloth wouldn’t
pass rigid laboratory muster, so Harrison
immersed metal filings in the mixture and
let it brew in a sterile glass bottle. After the
nine-day waiting period, the preparation
turned “into a kind of loathsome, odorous
slime.” The only thing left to do was follow
Bald’s final instruction: “At night-time,
apply with a feather on the eye: this is the
best remedy.”Or follow it near enough: the team hasn’t yet
applied the golden liquid to a bung eye with a
feather, but has done tests in the laboratory to
assess how well it works on a modern superbug
known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus, or MRSA. Harrison applied the gunk
to scraps of MRSA-infected mouse skin, and
counted how many bacteria were still alive
after 24 hours. To her surprise, she found
it had killed 90 per cent of the superbug –
similar to an effective antibiotic treatment.
“When we got the first results, we were just
utterly dumbfounded,” Harrison says. “It has a
massive, massive killing ability. We did not see
this coming at all.”How the salve actually works remains a
mystery – for now. It could be that several
active compounds are involved, or that
leaving the mixture for several days creates
a completely new compound via an as-yet-
unknown chemical reaction. “We don’t believe
that we have a silver bullet for curing MRSA,”
the AncientBiotics team is careful to say.
“And there is a huge amount of work to do in
determining why our preparation works so
well.” But the fact that a 1000-year-old spell
works at all is cause for celebration.For Lee and her historian colleagues, the
study has already proved a success. “When
[most people] use the term ‘medieval’ these
days, it’s often used as a pejorative.” Lee seesher work on superbugs as an opportunity
to recast the so-called Dark Ages in a more
positive, complicated light. If it happens to
save humanity, all the better.Following the initial experiment, Bald’s salve
has been tested on a number of different types
of bacteria, with varying results. It remains
to be seen whether it will have a role to play
in the coming war on superbugs, but it’s clear
that ancient texts are an untapped resource.
Thankfully, more and more scientists are
beginning to look to history for possible
solutions. In 2015, the pharmaceutical chemist
Tu Youyou shared the Nobel Prize for her work
in developing a malaria treatment using a
component extracted from sweet wormwood –
a 2000-year-old cure for fever she came across
while studying traditional Chinese medicine.Peter Collignon, a professor in the medical
school at the Australian National University,
believes looking to the past could well be
the way forward. “It’s likely we might find
something [in the books of the ancients].”
After all, he says, penicillin comes from a
natural fungus, and may have been used
on wounds long ago. It stands to reason,
then, that other materials with antibiotic
properties were used in ancient times and
are now worth investigating. “Equally, there
will be a lot – probably most – that don’t
work as well.” But the same is true of any
new medical treatment.Medical advancements aside, the
AncientBiotics researchers believe their work
is an example of how disparate disciplines
can combine forces to achieve things neither
could alone. If nothing else, bridging the gulf
between the humanities and science – the
so-called right- and left-brain divide – is an
achievement in itself. “This is a really good and
positive thing,” Lee agrees. “We hope that Bald
and his colleagues would have been pleased.” •IT REMAINS TO BE SEEN
WHETHER THE “ODOROUS
SLIME” WILL HAVE A ROLE TO
PLAY IN THE COMING WAR ON
SUPERBUGS, BUT IT’S CLEAR
THAT ANCIENT TEXTS ARE AN
UNTAPPED RESOURCE.