
For a long time, medieval medicine has been dismissed as irrelevant. This time period is popularly referred to as the “Dark Ages,” which erroneously suggests that it was unenlightened by science or reason. However, some medievalists and scientists are now looking back to history for clues to inform the search for new antibiotics.
The evolution of antibiotic-resistant microbes means that it is always necessary to find new drugs to battle microbes that are no longer treatable with current antibiotics. But progress in finding new antibiotics is slow. The drug discovery pipeline is currently stalled. An estimated 700,000 people around the world die annually from drug-resistant infections. If the situation does not change, it is estimated that such infections will kill 10 million people per year by 2050.
I am part of the Ancientbiotics team, a group of medievalists, microbiologists, medicinal chemists, parasitologists, pharmacists and data scientists from multiple universities and countries. We believe that answers to the antibiotic crisis could be found in medical history. With the aid of modern technologies, we hope to unravel how premodern physicians treated infection and whether their cures really worked.
To that end, we are compiling a database of medieval medical recipes. By revealing patterns in medieval medical practice, our database could inform future laboratory research into the materials used to treat infection in the past. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to create a medieval medicines database in this manner and for this purpose.
Bald’s eye salve
In 2015, our team published a pilot study on a 1,000-year old recipe called Bald’s eye salve from “Bald’s Leechbook,” an Old English medical text. The eye salve was to be used against a “wen,” which may be translated as a sty, or an infection of the eyelash follicle.
A common cause of modern styes is the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (or MRSA) is resistant to many current antibiotics. Staph and MRSA infections are responsible for a variety of severe and chronic infections, including wound infections, sepsis, and pneumonia.
Bald’s eye salve contains wine, garlic, an Allium species (such as leek or onion) and oxgall. The recipe states that, after the ingredients have been mixed together, they must stand in a brass vessel for nine nights before use.
In our study, this recipe turned out to be a potent antistaphylococcal agent, which repeatedly killed established S. aureus biofilms—a sticky matrix of bacteria adhered to a surface—in an in vitro infection model. It also killed MRSA in mouse chronic wound models.
Medieval methods
Premodern European medicine has been poorly studied for its clinical potential, compared with traditional pharmacopeias of other parts of the world. Our research also raises questions about medieval medical practitioners. Today, the word “medieval” is used as a derogatory term, indicating cruel behavior, ignorance, or backwards thinking. This perpetuates the myth that the period is unworthy of study.
During our eye salve study, chemist Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of a new therapy for malaria after searching over 2,000 recipes from ancient Chinese literature on herbal medicine. Is another “silver bullet” for microbial infection hidden within medieval European medical literature?
Certainly, there are medieval superstitions and treatments that we would not replicate today, such as purging a patient’s body of pathogenic humors. However, our work suggests that there could be a methodology behind the medicines of medieval practitioners, informed by a long tradition of observation and experimentation.
One key finding was that following the steps exactly as specified by the Bald’s eye salve recipe—including waiting nine days before use—was crucial for its efficacy. Are the results of this medieval recipe representative of others that treat infection? Were practitioners selecting and combining materials following some “scientific” methodology for producing biologically active cocktails?
Further research may show that some medieval medicines were more than placebos or palliative aids, but actual “ancientbiotics” used long before the modern science of infection control. This idea underlies our current study on the medieval medical text, “Lylye of Medicynes.”
A medieval medicines database
The “Lylye of Medicynes” is a 15th-century Middle English translation of the Latin “Lilium medicinae,” first completed in 1305. It is a translation of the major work of a significant medieval physician, Bernard of Gordon. His “Lilium medicinae” was translated and printed continuously over many centuries, until at least the late 17th century.
The text contains a wealth of medical recipes. In the Middle English translation, there are 360 recipes—clearly indicated with Rx in the text—and many thousands more ingredient names.
As a doctoral student, I prepared the first-ever edition of the “Lylye of Medicynes” and compared the recipes against four extant Latin copies of the “Lilium medicinae.” This involved faithfully copying the Middle English text from the medieval manuscript, then editing that text for a modern reader, such as adding modern punctuation and correcting scribal errors. The “Lylye of Medicynes” is 245 folios, which equates to 600 pages of word processed text.
I loaded the Middle English names of ingredients into a database, along with translations into modern equivalents, juxtaposed with relationships to recipe and disease. It is very time-consuming to format medieval data for processing with modern technologies. It also takes time to translate medieval medical ingredients into modern equivalents, due in part to multiple synonyms as well as variations in modern scientific nomenclature for plants. This information has to be verified across many sources.
With our database, we aim to find combinations of ingredients that occur repeatedly and are specifically used to treat infectious diseases. To achieve this, we are employing some common tools of data science, such as network analysis, a mathematical method to examine the relationships between entries. Our team will then examine how these patterns may help us to use medieval texts as inspiration for lab tests of candidate “ancientbiotic” recipes.
In March, we tested a small portion of the database to ensure that the method we developed was appropriate for this data set. At present, the database contains only the 360 recipes indicated with Rx. Now that the proof-of-concept stage is complete, I will expand the database to contain other ingredients which are clearly in recipe format, but may not be marked with Rx.
We are specifically interested in recipes associated with recognizable signs of infection. With Bald’s eye salve, the combination of ingredients proved to be crucial. By examining the strength of ingredient relationships, we hope to find out whether medieval medical recipes are driven by certain combinations of antimicrobial ingredients.
The database could direct us to new recipes to test in the lab in our search for novel antibiotics, as well as inform new research into the antimicrobial agents contained in these ingredients on the molecular level. It could also deepen our understanding of how medieval practitioners “designed” recipes. Our research is in the beginning stages, but it holds exciting potential for the future.
Erin Connelly, CLIR-Mellon Fellow for data curation in medieval studies, University of Pennsylvania
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Why do some folks use social media but don't engage?
Psychologist says people who never comment on social media share these 5 positive traits
For over 20 years, social media has developed into a staple in many people’s day-to-day lives. Whether it’s to keep in communication with friends and family, following the thoughts of celebrities, or watching cat videos while sipping your morning coffee, there seem to be two types of social media users: commenters and lurkers.
The term “lurker” sounds equally mysterious and insidious, with some social media users writing them off as non-participants at best or voyeurs at worst. However, mindfulness expert Lachlan Brown believes these non-commenters have some very psychologically positive and healthy traits. Let’s take a look at how each one of these traits could be beneficial and see how fruitful lurking might be even though it can drive content creators crazy.
1. Cautious about vulnerability
Consciously or not, making a post online or commenting on one puts you and your words out there. It’s a statement that everyone can see, even if it’s as simple as clicking “like.” Doing so opens yourself up to judgment, with all the good, bad, and potential misinterpretation that comes with it. Non-commenters would rather not open themselves up to that.
These silent users are connected to a concept of self-protection by simply not engaging. By just scrolling past posts or just reading/watching them without commentary, they’re preventing themselves from any downsides of sharing an opinion such as rejection, misunderstanding, or embarrassment. They also have more control on how much of themselves they’re willing to reveal to the general public, and tend to be more open face-to-face or during one-on-one/one-on-few private chats or DMs. This can be seen as a healthy boundary and prevents unnecessary exposure.
Considering many comment sections, especially involving political topics, are meant to stir negative emotional responses to increase engagement, being extra mindful about where, when, and what you comment might not be a bad idea. They might not even take the engagement bait at all. Or if they see a friend of theirs post something vulnerable, they feel more motivated to engage with them personally one-on-one rather than use social media to publicly check in on them.
2. Analytical and reflective mindset
How many times have you gone onto Reddit, YouTube, or any other site and just skimmed past comments that are just different versions of “yes, and,” “no, but,” or “yes, but”? Or the ever insightful, formerly popular comment “First!” in a thread? These silent browsers lean against adding to such noise unless they have some valid and thoughtful contribution (if they bother to comment period).
These non-posters are likely wired on reflective thinking rather than their initial intuition. Not to say that all those who comment aren’t thoughtful, but many tend to react quickly and comment based on their initial feelings rather than absorbing the information, thinking it over, researching or testing their belief, and then posting it. For "lurkers," it could by their very nature to just do all of that and not post it at all, or share their thoughts and findings privately with a friend. All in all, it’s a preference of substance over speed.
3. High sense of self-awareness
Carried over from the first two listed traits, these silent social media users incorporate their concern over their vulnerability and their reflective mindset into digital self-awareness. They know what triggers responses out of them and what causes them to engage in impulsive behavior. It could be that they have engaged with a troll in the past and felt foolish. Or that they just felt sad after a post or got into an unnecessary argument that impacted them offline. By knowing themselves and seeing what’s being discussed, they choose to weigh their words carefully or just not participate at all. It’s a form of self-preservation through restraint.
4. Prefer to observe rather than perform
Some folks treat social media as information, entertainment, or a mix of both, and commenting can feel like they’re yelling at the TV, clapping alone in a movie theater when the credits roll, or yelling “That’s not true!” to a news anchor that will never hear them. But contrary to that, social media is a place where those yells, claps, and accusations can be seen and get a response. By its design, social media is considered by experts and the media as performative, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Taking all of the previously mentioned traits into account, one can see why they would prefer to “observe the play” rather than get up on the stage of Facebook or X.
On top of that, these non-commenters could be using social media differently than those who choose to fully engage with it. Using this type of navigation, there may be nothing for them to comment about. Some commenters are even vying for this for their mental health. There are articles about how to better curate your social media feeds and manipulate algorithms to create a better social media experience to avoid unnecessary conflict or mentally tiring debate.
If you go on a blocking spree on all of your accounts and just follow the posters that boost you, it could turn your social media into a nice part of your routine as you mainly engage with others face-to-face or privately. In terms of commenting, if your curated Instagram is just following cute dogs and all you have to offer for a comment is “cute dog,” you might just enjoy the picture and then move on with your day rather than join in the noise. These non-commenters aren’t in the show and they’re fine with it.
5. Less motivated by social validation
The last trait that Brown showcases is that social media users who browse without posting tend to be independent from external validation, at least online. Social media is built to grow through feedback loops such as awarding likes, shares, and reposts of your content along with notifications letting you know that a new person follows you or wants to connect. This can lead many people to connect their activity on social media with their sense of self worth, especially with adolescents who are still figuring out their place in the world and have still-developing brains.
Engaging in social media via likes, shares, comments, and posts rewards our brains by having them release dopamine, which makes us feel good and can easily become addictive. For whatever reason, non-commenters don’t rely on social media as a means to gauge their social capital or self worth. This doesn’t make them better than those who do. While some non-commenters could have healthier ways to boost their self worth or release dopamine into their systems, many get that validation from equally unhealthy sources offline. That said, many non-commenters’ silence could be a display of independence and self confidence.
Whether you frequently comment online or don’t, it’s good to understand why you do or don’t. Analyzing your habits can help you determine whether your online engagement is healthy, or needs to be tweaked. With that information, you can then create a healthy social media experience that works for you.