Medieval remedy for modern day superbugs

a reply to: TatTvamAsi

It's funny how medicine has almost come full circle.

Maggot and leech therapy was ridiculed when modern medicine arrived but over time it's starting to be accepted again. Maggots only feast on decomposing flesh and they could help treat gangrenous limbs or wounds and leeches could help in the battle against Septicaemia. Some of the ancient techniques are ingenious and it would interesting to know how those medieval doctors came up with their ideas.

The best remedy that was passed onto me was a remedy for the common cold-crush a clove of garlic, hold it to your nose and take a deep sniff-it's not the most pleasant experience but believe me it works.

There's actually a documentary on this too.
The.AncientBiotics.Project

a reply to: UKWO1Phot

so very interesting! as one poster said, we get some meds in purified form, aspirin from willow bark......anyone check their blood pressure medicine? my husband was put on some a few years ago...little pills made from cobra venom!!! a snake bite can cause a big fast drop in blood pressure among other things (swelling pain etc,possible death)..

I wonder who even thought this up, just use a little venom and lower high blood pressure

Your friend has my sympathiesits a hard disease to live with, I was diagnosed a year ago & researched it my hemp oil has omega 3,omega 6,omega 6 gla,omega 9 oleic which are helping my joints I can now lift a coffee in the morning without painkillers & a vitamin d supplement also helps. Going gluten,dairy & processed sugars makes all the differance apparently but I've only managed to cut out gluten no coffee for me is not a pretty sight lola reply to: texasgirl

Gluten free lol sorry am still on my first coffee waking up lol, I take a tablespoon of hemp oil daily is brilliant,my dog has ecsma so I give a teaspoon to him daily & its helped so much. a reply to: texasgirl

I was impressed with a post on the power of mushrooms put on here recently.
I am trying Agaricus blazei Murill on my dog that has skin allergies. So far the results are promising, but it has only been a few weeks.

originally posted by: InTheLight
I am not surprised that ancient natural remedies are effective, especially garlic, which is an all-around good anti-fungal and anti-bacterial substance. I would, however, be interested in this AncientBiotics Team testing out some other cures from Bald's Leechbook, such as this one. (Siome of the other cures seem quite eccentric)

The remedy for shingles comprised a potion using the bark of 15 trees: aspen, apple, maple, elder, willow, sallow, myrtle, wych-elm, oak, blackthorn, birch, olive, dogwood, ash, and quickbeam.[7]

en.wikipedia.org...

I think the Garlic, would work because it slows down cell division , and the Alacin it produces is antibacterial, the leek would have a high organic Sulphur content, which kills bugs. But it really does sound like the steeping along with the other ingredients ups the bug killing effect . The alcohol, kills bugs as well, sounds like a great practical cure.

Any remedies used hundreds of years ago, IF they were effective, were likely not understood. Some wonder how such cures could be developed such a long time ago, and the truth is simply "trial and error." While today we strive to understand and test things before giving them to humans, there were no such qualms that long ago. You test something on someone, and if it killed them, too bad - if it worked, great, and it would continue to be used. Such negligent experimentation has likely occurred with every major civilization at some point, especially those who had no knowledge that had been passed down to them. I would venture a guess that the majority of these old cures and treatments were ineffective. However, some likely hit on something that worked, but again this was trial and error as opposed to finding a medicinal solution to a problem. To put it another way, they could not identify what the cause of the ailment was specifically, therefore it is logical to assume that they did not understand "why" any treatment worked. If one looks at the state of medical knowledge throughout history, it becomes apparent that there were proposed explanations, but that these explanations were incorrect. Even their cures had explanations that were incorrect, telling us that any effective treatment or cure was pure luck.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

That is a massive presumption on your part.

It is the real problem with understanding where we are now.

Big Pharma does not want to cure you, they want to treat you so you continue to buy their product at over inflated prices while telling you that they are the only ones you can trust.

It is also your assumption that they did not know any better that trial and error. I do not believe that is true.

Remember always, a huge number of ancient remedies are still used today. Yes they are refined and we can identify the active ingredient but we still use the basic knowledge from hundreds of years ago.

Oh, and do not forget the Patent roundabout where money is the industries foundation.

P

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
Some of the ancient techniques are ingenious and it would interesting to know how those medieval doctors came up with their ideas.

Thanks for the input! That was what I was wondering as well since none of the ingredients by themselves apparently do nothing on their own to kill the bugs.

a reply to: TatTvamAsi

The ancients knew a whole helluva lot. In fact, the most effective drugs Big Pharma hawks were developed from ancient remedies. They're not as good though 'cuz they focus on "the active ingredient" and just don't get that life is holistic.

originally posted by: anonentity

originally posted by: InTheLight
I am not surprised that ancient natural remedies are effective, especially garlic, which is an all-around good anti-fungal and anti-bacterial substance. I would, however, be interested in this AncientBiotics Team testing out some other cures from Bald's Leechbook, such as this one. (Siome of the other cures seem quite eccentric)

The remedy for shingles comprised a potion using the bark of 15 trees: aspen, apple, maple, elder, willow, sallow, myrtle, wych-elm, oak, blackthorn, birch, olive, dogwood, ash, and quickbeam.[7]

en.wikipedia.org...

I think the Garlic, would work because it slows down cell division , and the Alacin it produces is antibacterial, the leek would have a high organic Sulphur content, which kills bugs. But it really does sound like the steeping along with the other ingredients ups the bug killing effect . The alcohol, kills bugs as well, sounds like a great practical cure.

Indeed it does, but I wonder how that part of the cow's stomach contributes to it's efficacy, or does it just give it a salve-like base in which to suspend and/or keep it's active ingredients?

a reply to: TatTvamAsi

Its not all that surprising to be honest. We still use leaches in pediatric hospitals (although not for the traditional practice of bleeding someone) and honey for wound care, and other ancient remedies.

The trend away from the reckless prescribing of antibiotics no doubt will cause more like this to be unearthed.

originally posted by: charlyv
I was impressed with a post on the power of mushrooms put on here recently.

I am trying Agaricus blazei Murill on my dog that has skin allergies. So far the results are promising, but it has only been a few weeks.

Can you switch your dog to an all-raw diet? You can buy pre-made raw food from Instinct, Chewy's, Primal that come already prepared. Just thaw in fridge before serving. I work with animals and I suggested to a client that she switch to a raw diet, as her poor border collie was suffering from the worst skin allergies possible. She was a wreck, had hot spots all over her body and the hair on her legs had fallen off. She couldn't walk a foot without scratching and would often drag her belly on the grass to relieve the constant itching. After eating a raw diet she is in beautiful shape. Her hair grew back and the hot spots disappeared.

Hopefully this study will wake people up and start thinking about getting back to the basics. Drugs really, mostly only treat the symptoms and doesn't work to correct the problem from the inside. Food does that. We need an overhaul of our eating habits by cutting out all the processed junk that is only making our bodies sick. When we do feel an illness coming on we can use these 'ancient' remedies to get back on track.

Hopefully our ancient remedies won't be so ancient anymore.

This is on Fox news.
but some think its a april fool gag!

just think how much we Would have if the church
had not killed off nearly all the wise women.
or witches.

they had 20,000 years to find out what would work.
and we lost nealy all of it.

and the dug companys make no money from it!!!

originally posted by: TatTvamAsi
I found this article amazing. It shows, at least, that before the modern scientific method, there were people experimenting with cures for diseases as the modern scholars found that any single ingredient in the 'potion' had hardly any effect on modern superbugs. It raises the question once again that how much do we actually know in the modern era since it seems highly unlikely that this cure was arrived at by chance. I guess the researchers will spend some time deciphering why the cure works as well as it does since the cause of the effectiveness of the remedy is still unknown.

What think you ATS? Are there more cures for ailments awaitng discovery in old manuscripts around the world? Should we take a more serious stance towards ancient knowledge even though that knowledge was not cooked up by the modern scientific method?

Ancient medical knowledge is a very mixed bag. For every one thing like this, there are ten "let's carve a hole in your skull because you have a headache" and "hey drink this silver and mercury to cure your syphilis" situations hanging around out there, lol. This is pretty cool though. Also, hospitals are starting to go back to copper handles and such because it is a natural antibiotic. Should never have stopped using it.

originally posted by: soulwaxer
a reply to: TatTvamAsi

Wow! That blows my mind. How the h*ll did they do that before the scientific method and even the microscope?

I wonder if they even knew what bacteria were, and if so, how?

soulwaxer

They were witches, they knew things...

Rebel 5

originally posted by: InTheLight

originally posted by: anonentity

originally posted by: InTheLight
I am not surprised that ancient natural remedies are effective, especially garlic, which is an all-around good anti-fungal and anti-bacterial substance. I would, however, be interested in this AncientBiotics Team testing out some other cures from Bald's Leechbook, such as this one. (Siome of the other cures seem quite eccentric)

The remedy for shingles comprised a potion using the bark of 15 trees: aspen, apple, maple, elder, willow, sallow, myrtle, wych-elm, oak, blackthorn, birch, olive, dogwood, ash, and quickbeam.[7]

en.wikipedia.org...

I think the Garlic, would work because it slows down cell division , and the Alacin it produces is antibacterial, the leek would have a high organic Sulphur content, which kills bugs. But it really does sound like the steeping along with the other ingredients ups the bug killing effect . The alcohol, kills bugs as well, sounds like a great practical cure.

Indeed it does, but I wonder how that part of the cow's stomach contributes to it's efficacy, or does it just give it a salve-like base in which to suspend and/or keep it's active ingredients?

I was thinking that as well. I know in the unpleasant world of slaughterhouses the bile glands are removed and stored. Plus the Chinese seem to be into gall bladders in a big way. It would be worth looking into. "Seems they have a lot of Gall", might be locked in the language somewhere. Sounds like if 75% of the immune system is in the gut, the bile might do something to enhance it.

Neat that they stumbled upon some set of old-world medicines and found that it was effective, there's probably a lot more of stuff like that which just needs more research. Still it's probably tricky to find the good ones among the snake-oil type stuff.

As for how people figured this out? Had to be trial and error. If you're suffering from a problem bad enough, sooner or later you'll try anything. Out of the hodge-podge of folk remedies eventually you'll find something that works, and stick with it. And at times you may find some other things that supposedly work and see if they work even better together.

One time I even came up with something crazy for sand rash, because I picked up some scaly itchy stuff on my feet and ankles from a beach on the east coast. Cleaning, scrubbing, OTC salves and athletes foot stuff didn't work on whatever it was. So I became my own test guinea pig to see if there was something cheap to get rid of it. I did know bleach was one of the strongest things for killing germs, bit of mushed bananas could work as a salve, and remembering some other thing about copper pennies doing something for rashes. So a 50% mix of bleach and water poured over the rash after scrubbing it (burns a bit), a bit of mashed banana with some copper pennies (cools it off right away), then stick banana peel over that. About an hour a day doing that, caused some of the scaly skin to peel, but cleared up in two weeks. Crazy to try it, but harmless enough, and it seemed to work.

Also some people in ancient times did have microscopes, but weren't the ones we know with ground glass optics. (Glass ones were invented in the late 1500's or so.) The first microscopy was done using loops made of hair or metal or small pinholes in a water resistant material and water droplets. Two or three magnifications done in a series that way could let you see things that the naked eye couldn't. (Over 100X magnification.) But since primitive microscopes were more of a novelty kind of thing (difficult to use and not consistent), nobody really used those things in much of a scientific manner nor corellated those tiny critters to germs and disease until much later. (So it was the trial and error method that was way more likely in finding ancient cures.)