Infections associated with #biofilms are notoriously difficult to treat and play a large role in #antibiotic resistance, a significant emerging health problem. It is estimated that Antimicrobial resistance will kill 10 million people per year by 2050. Scientists from Warwick University have recognised the need for new #antimicrobials to fight antibiotic resistance and have had their work published in the Nature Journal in July 2020. In conjunction with medievalists the team of microbiologists, chemists, pharmacists, and data analysts recreated a 1000-year-old medicinal preparation called Bald’s eye salve using extracts of “onion, garlic, wine, and bile salts” and found it to have strong antibacterial activity.

The term vestigial organ is used to describe tissues that are typically in a degenerate, atrophied, or rudimentary condition, and the appendix has long been characterised as such a tissue. The work of Dr’s William Parker and Randall Bollinger have raised a number of interesting observations that indicate this tissue should be given an updated and relevant title.

To coin a phrase it is a ‘reservoir of dogs bacteria’, providing a safe repository or bank of bacterial species able to re-colonise in the event of a traumatic disruption of the microbial mix, such as that experienced after diahorrea or antibiotic use.[1]