Laboratory in vitro testing of various remedies from the Old EnglishLeechbooks and Lacnunga does not support previous assertions thatAnglo-Saxon medical remedies would have been efficacious. Forexample, the remedy for a stye in the eye takes ingredients thatindividually have anti-bacterial properties and compounds them into amixture with no effect on common bacteria. We conclude thatAnglo-Saxon remedies were not likely to have cured the ailments forwhich they were prescribed and that researchers, rather thanasserting the probable prowess of the Anglo-Saxon læce, shouldinstead focus on what people in the time period believed would havehelped them.