Nina In New York: Ye Olde Antibiotic
A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak
This has been a week of ill health for the Pajak clan. We're all rheumy and sneezy and coughing and runny, which would be manageable were it not for the fact that one of us is two and therefore responds to physical discomfort in a manner so unhinged and alarming that I couldn't decide whether to take her to a doctor or an exorcist. I chose doctor, and we're all on the mend, but I've still got germs on the mind.
In all of our centuries of medical advancements, some things just haven't improved. The virus that causes the common cold may not kill us anymore, but there's still not a whole lot anyone can do about many of the ailments with which we are regularly afflicted. And then in some cases, our efforts to treat have gone too far, resulting in antibiotic resistant superbugs which feed on our feeble medications and gain strength from our insignificant human souls.
For the most part, though, we're in a much better place than we were, say, a thousand or so years ago. What with their leaches and their toad scrapings and newt eyes and unnecessary amputations and . . . effective medications? For reasons still somewhat unclear, a team of scientists in Britain have discovered that a medieval recipe for an eye salve can also be used to fight the normally resistant MRSA bacteria with remarkable results.
The potion (because I'm pretty sure that's the correct term for any medical "recipe" from the 9th Century) is impressively simple: garlic, onion, cow stomach ("bovine salts"), oh and just a soupçon of historic English wine which can probably only be found in historic England and maybe needs to be made using historic grapes and pressed by the feet of a vineyard wench who is descended from centuries of pure English winemakers, while dressed in historic garb. But I'm no doctor. Further research is required.
If it turns out that Theodoric of York was onto something actually usable way back when, what else could we dig up and test out? Maybe bloodletting will see a comeback. Bad headache? Why not have someone bore a hole in your skull? I can already see the most fashionable spas in LA offering the latest in boar bile enemas. You may laugh, but with women voluntarily going out into the woods to birth babies miles from any hospital (equipped with a camera crew), I see no reason why retro medicine can't make a fashionable resurgence. See you at the leachery!
Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!
