A cure based on garlic and onions, used in the Middle Ages, could prove to be a very good antibiotic

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Antibiotic resistance is a very real threat. In the near future, we may no longer be able to treat and cure many of the infections we could once have hacked, because the bacteria manage to survive the most sophisticated drugs we have.

Experts estimate that 10 million people will die in the next 30 years due to bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and researchers are exploring alternatives. This is how a team of researchers from Great Britain seems to have found something promising in a source that not many would have thought of: a medieval manuscript, "Bald's Leechbook", considered to be one of the first medical texts, reports CNN.

It is a natural remedy made from onions, garlic, wine and bile salts, which has shown its antibacterial potential, with hopes of treating diabetic foot and other foot infections, given that diabetic foot ulcers risk becoming complete. resistant to antibiotic treatment, hence the threat of sepsis and amputation.

"Bald's Ointment", remade with ingredients from the supermarket
Known as "Bald's ointment", the treatment has the potential to fight so-called biofilm infections (no - biofilm is the response of bacteria to stimuli that directly attack them. They combine and form a mass of bacteria difficult to fight) - communities of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are more difficult to treat.

The study by British researchers estimates that biofilm infections cost the UK alone over a billion pounds a year.

For the first time, the medieval mixture proved to be a potential aid in the fight against supermicrobes in 2015, and the study now published in "Scientific Reports" shows how it worked and how it could be put into practice.

Tested separately, each of the ingredients of the natural mixture has a certain antibacterial activity, but it seems that this activity becomes stronger when they are put to act together.

Researchers remade the ointment from the old medieval book using garlic and onions bought from regular supermarkets, used an English white wine, and bile salts were taken from a beef stomach.

Researchers have also tested ointment for safety, and the data are promising, especially when it comes to natural ingredients. The next step is to chemically characterize the mixture and then start testing on human skin.

Old texts, a source of inspiration for new medicines
Researching historical texts to find new treatments is not an unusual practice. Artemisinin, the anti-malarial drug derived from the wormwood plant, was discovered by Chinese researcher Tu Youyou after studying ancient Chinese texts. The researcher was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The culmination is that even in the old English book researchers found a wormwood remedy recommended for malaria, a disease that wreaked havoc in England in the early medieval period.

Antibiotics are essential in modern medicine, and if they lose their effectiveness, medical procedures such as surgery and chemotherapy could become too dangerous. That is why researchers are looking for new antibiotics, but also alternative treatments. Common substances in everyday life are considered, such as honey or vinegar, but also more unusual sources, such as the blood of the giant monitor lizard (Komodo monitor lizard). In other approaches, viruses are used to attack ultra-resistant bacteria.