A medieval remedy for eye infections, the preparation of which was described in a thousand-year-old manuscript in the British Library, has been found to kill the superbug MRSA. Anglo-Saxon specialist Christina Lee, of the School of English at Nottingham University, recreated the 10th-century potion to see if it worked.The eye salve recipe calls for two species of allium (garlic, and onion or leek), wine and ox gall (bile from a cow's stomach).It describes a very specific method of making the solution, including the use of a brass vessel in which to brew it and a strainer to purify it. The manuscript says the mixture must be left to mature for nine days before use.Lee and her colleagues did not expect the concoction to work. But, when it was tested, microbiologists were amazed to find that not only did the salve clear up styes in the eyes but also tackled the deadly superbug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which has developed resistance to many antibiotics."We were astonished," said Lee. "We believe modern research into disease can benefit from past knowledge, which is largely contained in non-scientific writings."But the potential of these texts to contribute to dealing with disease cannot be understood without the combined expertise of both the arts and science."Lee translated the recipe from Bald's Leechbook, a leather-bound Old English manuscript in the British Library.The book is one of the earliest-known medical textbooks. It contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines and treatments."Medieval leech books and herbaria contain many remedies designed to treat what are clearly bacterial infections, weeping wounds and sores, eye and throat infections, skin conditions such as erysipelas, leprosy and chest infections," Lee said.The scientists at Nottingham University made four batches of the remedy, using fresh ingredients each time. They also concocted a control treatment using the same quantity of distilled water, and brass sheeting to mimic the brewing container, but without the vegetable compounds.None of the individual ingredients alone had any measurable effect but when combined according to the recipe the MRSA populations were almost totally obliterated: about one bacterial cell in 1000 survived in mice that were treated with the salve.Researchers believe that the antibacterial effect of the recipe is not due to a single ingredient but to their combination and the brewing method.Further research is planned to investigate how and why the recipe works.Nottingham University microbiologist Freya Harrison, who led the work in the laboratory, said: "We were absolutely blown away by just how effective the combination of ingredients was."This truly cross-disciplinary project explores a new approach to modern healthcare problems."Dr Kendra Rumbaugh, of Texas Tech University, who was asked to replicate the findings, said that the salve performed "as well as, if not better" than traditional antibiotics at tackling the superbug.The team at Nottingham is seeking more funding to extend the research so that the salve can be tested on humans.The findings were presented at the annual conference of the Society for General Microbiology in Birmingham, UK, this week...