Laboratory in vitro testing of various remedies from the Old English
Leechbooks and Lacnunga does not support previous assertions that
Anglo-Saxon medical remedies would have been efficacious. For
example, the remedy for a stye in the eye takes ingredients that
individually have anti-bacterial properties and compounds them into a
mixture with no effect on common bacteria. We conclude that
Anglo-Saxon remedies were not likely to have cured the ailments for
which they were prescribed and that researchers, rather than
asserting the probable prowess of the Anglo-Saxon læce, should
instead focus on what people in the time period believed would have
helped them.