Posts Tagged ‘bacterial biofilms’

August 2nd, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

I am very glad we have antibiotics and antivirals and vaccines. I would not have liked to live in medieval England when the Saxons (and Merlin?) were concocting remedies for various ills. In a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon medical text called Bald’s Leechbook you will find a remedy for eye styes, an infection of the oil gland in the eyelid. Bald’s eyesalve was made of cow’s bile, wine, garlic, and onions,  and was meant to cure styes.  Did it work? And, if it did, why and how? It works, as a group of scientists found when they made the salve with garlic, onions, white wine (from the area) and bovine bile salts.…