Oxymel is a mixture of honey and vinegar, used as a medicine. According to Scientific American, recently the mixture has been used successfully in a biofilm for topical uses on wounds where bacteria has become resistant to antibiotics, both ingredients having been used historicaly as antiseptics, but the combination was reported as killing as much as 1,000 times more bacteria than vinegar alone and as much as 100,000 times more than honey alone in biofilms. Its name is often found in Renaissance (and later) pharmacopoeiae in Late Latin form as either a countable or uncountable noun. As a countable noun, it is spelled variously as (singular) oxymellus and oxymellis, and plural oxymeli and oxymelli.

Etymology and recipe

Cato the Elder describes it thus: "Oxymelli. Fit vinum ex aceto & melle quod oxymel vocaverunt voce Graecanica. Nam oξ(?) dicitur Graecis acetu & μίλ mel. Fit autem oxymel hoc modo. Mellis decem librae cum aceti heminis quinque, haec decies subserve faciunt atque ita sinunt inveterare. Themison summus autor damnavit oxymel & hydromel. Est autem hydromel vinum ex aquae & melle confectum, unde & nome. Celebrant autores ex omphacomel, quod fit ex uvae semiacerbae succo & melle fortiter trite unde & nome: Graec enim όμφας dicitur uvae acerbae, & όμφαφκας vocant uvas & fructus immaturus. Hinc omphalicium oleum dictum, quod ex olivis acerbis quas δίγρας(?) vocant, fit: & omphacium ex uva, quod vulgo agreste nominitant."

Use

In the 1593 work Enchiridion chirurgicum, oxymel was recommended as part of a treatment for ophthalmia. Because Latin was (and is) still used widely in medical prescriptions, it was still known by this name in Victorian times: "℞: Plumbi Acetatis, gr. j. Solve in Aquae Rosae, ℥j.; et adde Oxymellis Simplicis, ʒj.; Tinct. Opii, ♏︎v.; Tinct. Digitalis, ♏︎x. Fiat Haustus, quartis vel sextis horis sumendus."