We have not always relied on the latest and the newest medicines as remedies for different health issues. At one time we used what was available even if it was something as primitive or disgusting as a piece of moldy bread, urine or honey.
Continue readingEgyptians used honey for wound dressing and ancient Indian healers reportedly used urine as treatments with great success.
As mold is the father of modern antibiotics, we will explore the example of moldy bread and its anti-bacterial properties in general. One of the earliest examples of natural antibiotics was in ancient Serbia, where old bread was pressed upon wounds to help to prevent infection. This form of treatment actually contained an early raw form of penicillin. Mold use was also practiced in China and Greece with similar results.
With the mass production of bio-chemical antibiotics that followed, the quantities were large enough that animals could be used in experimenting with antibiotics and this later lead to the large scale manufacturing in the early 1940’s.
Over time some strains of bacteria began to adapt and became resistant to antibiotics. Today not all antibiotics work for all bacteria due to the acquired resistance.
Some of the reasons are inappropriate antibiotic use for viral infections, such as the common cold and the use of antibiotics as growth promoter in agriculture given to livestock in the absence of disease.
Practices, such as antibiotics, are effective in killing germs and disease causing bacteria, they are also effective in killing our beneficial bacteria.
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