a jar of honey
'Honey, of course, has been touted for millennia as a cure-all.
“It causes heat, cleans sores and ulcers, softens hard ulcers of the lips, heals carbuncles and running sores,” wrote Hippocrates, the Greek clinician, in the fourth century B.C.
Less well known are its mummifying powers.
Honey’s extremely high sugar content acts much like salt: It sucks water from bacteria, essentially drying the microbes to death. Honey also contains small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, which of course is antiseptic.'
Traditional Chinese Medicine
'The Chinese believed that honey as a medicine has a “balanced character” (neither Yin or Yang) and acts as an Earth element, working within the lungs, spleen, and large intestine. Honey was mentioned as medicine by Shen Nang, circa 2,000 BC, when it was cited as being used in cases of bacterial infections, Rheumatoid arthritis, gastrointestinal distress, and to help heal open wounds.'
'Honey has been used as a wound treatment by indigenous cultures around the globe for thousands of years. Archeological findings and early written works indicate that wounds were treated with honey by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, among others [1]. With the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s, honey fell out of favor as a wound treatment [2]. However, with the increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, as well as new in vitro and in vivo data supporting honey’s effectiveness in treating wounds and as a natural broad-band antibacterial agent, it has recently made a comeback in clinical medicine. Additionally, honey’s ability to aid in situ cellularization and regeneration of implanted acellular tissue-engineered structures indicates its potential as a tissue engineering additive.'
