A thousand-year-old potion for eye infections may hold the key to wiping out a modern day superbug.
MRSA stands for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. It's a bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics.
Scientists recreated a remedy found in Bald's Leechbook, which is one of the earliest known medical textbooks from the tenth century. The recipe for the potion calls for some interesting ingredients, including onion and garlic mixed with ox gall, which is bile from a cow's stomach. Researchers followed the medical book's instructions and to their surprise, the mix of ingredients proved very potent when treating antibiotic resistant infections. In fact, early studies on mice show that the mix can kill up to 90 percent of MRSA bacteria.
Researchers plan to test other recipes in Bald's Leechbook to see what other historical remedies could prove helpful to other ailments.