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Creativity Hiding in the Headlines
“Ancient Remedy Cures Modern Infection” says a lot about creative practice.
Posted March 31, 2015
“Anglo Saxon Eye Remedy Kills Deadly Superbug.” It’s the kind of headline that is sure to attract anyone interested in ancient, complementary and alternative medicines, but why post it in a creativity blog? Well, if you haven’t guessed by now, creativity can hide anywhere, manifest itself in any field, and impart its lessons through any medium. So read on!
On March 31, 2015 msn.com reiterated a delicious New Scientist report from the day before. Researchers at the University of Nottingham had found that a thousand-year-old recipe for treating sties was highly effective against antibiotic resistant strains of staphylococcus, especially the hospital superbug MRSA.
Both articles made much of the ancient provenance of the remedy, concocted of “cropleek and garlic…wine and bullocks gall.” They also mentioned the rather magical sounding nature of its manufacture: “let it stand nine days in the brass vessel…” And then there’s the surprising fact that the concoction actually does its job, drawing us in to the story. Who would look for the solution to a modern hospital infection problem in a medieval book of potions? Who would expect such a pre-scientific stew of ingredients to work?
But more interesting from the perspective of creativity: Who would even think to use such a concoction in a modern laboratory? And why?!
We’ve been interested in this type of medical creativity for quite some time, ever since writing our first book together in 1997: Honey, Mud, Maggots and Other Medical Marvels (Houghton Mifflin). How, we wondered, did modern medical practices evolve, especially before the so-called scientific age of medicine? Why were so many old practices that had long fallen by the wayside—the use of honey to salve wounds, for example, maggots to clean wounds, or leeches to let blood—making come-backs in modern hospital settings? We argued that modern medicine has much to gain from sussing out the hidden knowledge in folk medicines and old wives’ tales. Some of the most creative forms of medicine are being re-discovered by unusual people who can look backwards into history and forward into the future of medicine simultaneously.
The scientific study of an Anglo-Saxon remedy therefore intrigues us for what it has to say about creative practice in knowledge-making professions. The University of Nottingham researchers demonstrate mastery of at least three elements necessary to creative breakthrough—let’s call them challenge\Pre-creation and creation.
Challenge: As msn.com and the New Scientist make clear, the research in this particular case began with an uncommon collaboration between individuals working in the arts and in the sciences. Thinking in terms of the problem—that is to say, widespread and troublesome antibiotic resistance to current drugs—the group at Nottingham were clearly willing to challenge current wisdom and rethink current notions of relevant practice. Maybe the Anglo-Saxons were on to something. Certain materials listed in the old remedy suggested the possibility: the copper in the brass vessel or cooking pot, for instance, would kill bacteria grown in a dish. Yet each ingredient by itself had little effect on a real infection. The question was, would the ingredients in combination provide a cure?
Re-Creation: The researchers set out to copy or recreate the recipe as accurately as possible. They used vintage foods and tried to mimic the properties of brass vessels in their laboratory flasks. They stewed the potion for nine days, just like the recipe said. And the final product worked—just as it did, we can suppose, in medieval England. Over the course of the long stew, the potion sterilized itself. When applied to skin taken from MRSA-infected mice, it killed 90% of the bacteria.
Re-Creation Leads to Creation: And the research is by no means finished. By re-creating the old medical remedy, the group at Nottingham opened up new questions for research: why does the combination, cooked over nine days, work? Is there a synergy between all the ingredients? Are new compounds formed? Can modern medicine extract the efficacious elements and make do without the actual garlic, the actual brass? Re-creation of old techniques and practices has posed new questions that will surely lead to the creation of new information, if not new medicines. Past, present and future linked by (re)creative insight!
What’s the take-away for creative practice? Re-examining what was known in the past with new eyes and new purposes revitalizes our own understanding of phenomena and pushes forward our own construction of knowledge—not just in medicine, but in problem-solving endeavors of all kinds.
(c) 2015 Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein
