Traditional Western Medicine

[wenshu]

When microbiologist Freya Harrison chatted with Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon scholar, she was intrigued by a nasty-sounding recipe in Bald’s Leechbook (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/harlmanucoll/m/011hrl000000055u00001000.html), a thousand-year-old compendium of medical advice and potions. Here’s the recipe, which was recommended to fight infected eyelash follicles (styes):

Take cropleek and garlic, of both equal quantities, pound them well together… take wine and bullocks gall, mix with the leek… let it stand nine days in the brass vessel…

Intrigued by the possibility that the recipe had anti-bacterial properties, Harrison set forth on a quest to recreate it as accurately as possible. She looked for heritage vegetable varieties, used historic wine and immersed brass into the mixture so she could use sterile glass bottles. And she sourced “bullocks gall,” or cow bile, using salts that are usually prescribed for people who have had gall bladder removal surgery.

The brew fermented for days, killing off soil bacteria introduced by the vegetables, reeking of garlic and turning downright nasty. “With the nine-day waiting period, the preparation turned into a kind of loathsome, odorous slime,” reported a colleague. But that loathsome slime had a real benefit—when the team tested the brew on scraps of MRSA-infected mouse skin, it killed 90 percent of the bacteria, results comparable to those achieved by the leading antibiotic given to fight the superbug.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasty-medieval-remedy-kills-mrsa-180954808/

[curenado]

Yup. I would hope for something better than bile :) but traditional medicine is working better than conventional in the resistent bug dept.

[herb ox]

Doesn't surprise me at all, being someone who studies ancient medicine... without realizing it, the ancients often had the right idea even if they couldn't explain why according to our current scientific standards.

What is not mentioned in the article, unfortunately is the mechanism by which this concoction works.

However, I suspect it is because the naturally occurring bacteria causing the nasty ferment may overwhelm the MRSA bacteria, just like how a "poop shake" can overcome claustridium difficile by flooding the gut with "healthy" bacteria.

We are not meant to live in a sterile world. To me, this recipe suggests just that!

Eat yer stinky tofu :D

herb ox

[curenado]

I wondered about the m.o.a. - acid, alcohol, suffocation or oxidation.
Wondering if french onion soup with a teaspoon of Ling tzi wouldn't be about the same?

I pointedly avoid that thing about animal parts, secretions, products etc unless there's a direct un-sub reason.
(G-R-O-S-S!)

[mawali]

I wondered about the m.o.a. - acid, alcohol, suffocation or oxidation.
Wondering if french onion soup with a teaspoon of Ling tzi wouldn't be about the same?

I pointedly avoid that thing about animal parts, secretions, products etc unless there's a direct un-sub reason.
(G-R-O-S-S!)

In essence, a positive thing but again some TCM products are so '*******ized" (lack of QA control, mis-identification of product(s), % degree of additoinal product, and adulturation with unclean products) that they become their own worst enemy.

Onion/garlic soup is good by itself. Leeches may be seen as an abnormal part of medical practice but they saved quite a few people in Vietnam. They cleansed and cauterized wounds/injury (open skin wounds and saved lives with minimal cost but that is seen as a negative effect by the big corporations and it robs them of ROI so it is bad for the bottom line.

[wenshu]

Doesn't surprise me at all, being someone who studies ancient medicine... without realizing it, the ancients often had the right idea even if they couldn't explain why according to our current scientific standards.

What is not mentioned in the article, unfortunately is the mechanism by which this concoction works.

However, I suspect it is because the naturally occurring bacteria causing the nasty ferment may overwhelm the MRSA bacteria, just like how a "poop shake" can overcome claustridium difficile by flooding the gut with "healthy" bacteria.

We are not meant to live in a sterile world. To me, this recipe suggests just that!

Eat yer stinky tofu :D

herb ox

It mentions in the article that the after a few days of fermentation the concotion became self sterilizing, killing the soil bacteria introduced by the crops. I read another piece about this that I can't find now that mentions the researcher's thoughts about the synergestic anti bacterial effects of the ingredients. Garlic contains a well studied anti-bacterial (among other things) compund: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin

Heres an interesting similiar discovery that lead to the development of a modern drug from ancient/folk knowledge in China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou#Malaria


Tu started her malaria research in China when the Cultural Revolution was in progress. In early 1969, Tu was appointed head of the project, named Project 523 research group at her institute. She collected 2000 candidate recipes, ancient texts, and folk remedies for possible leads for her research. By 1971, her team had made 380 extracts from 200 herbs, and discovered the extracts from Qinghao (Artemisia annua, sweet wormwood) looked particularly promising in dramatically inhibiting Plasmodium growth in animals. Tu found the way to extract it and her innovations boosted potency and slashed toxicity of this extract.[9] In 1972, she and her colleagues obtained the pure substance and named it Qinghaosu (青蒿素) or artemisinin now commonly called in the west,[9][10][11] which has saved millions of lives, especially in the developing world.[12] Tu also studied the chemical structure and pharmacology of artemisinin.[9]

[mawali]

It mentions in the article that the after a few days of fermentation the concotion became self sterilizing, killing the soil bacteria introduced by the crops. I read another piece about this that I can't find now that mentions the researcher's thoughts about the synergestic anti bacterial effects of the ingredients. Garlic contains a well studied anti-bacterial (among other things) compund: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin

Heres an interesting similiar discovery that lead to the development of a modern drug from ancient/folk knowledge in China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou#Malaria

I worked on an artemisin formulation on one of my last clinical research projects but the drug's efficacy was a problem. There were strong results but the normal population showed untoward
adverse events and the drug was retired. As in all drug products, when you mess around with % of main product ingredient(s) you mess up the drug's therapeutic effects through minimizing the "good" or "worsening the bad". The drug had a great profile, showed an element of therapeutic effect with the sick population. Main endpoint was % eradication of falciparum!