Can the world be saved from a horrible death with a spade and a bucket? Two separate studies suggest it’s true.

Researchers have found a new bacterium capable of killing four of the top-priority superbugs on the World Health Organisation hit list. The superbugs are resistant to antibiotics and pose a deadly threat to millions of people.

The new bacterium, a new strain of Streptomyces – a class of bacteria used to produce antibiotics such as streptomycin – was found to kill the deadly “hospital superbug” MRSA.

Can you dig it? Yes you can

The discovery was made when an international team of researchers investigated an old wives’ tale: The soil from the Boho Highlands in Northern Ireland, once home to the mystical druids, was said to contain magical healing properties.

Up until the mid-1800s it was apparently common practice to wrap a small amount of soil in a piece of cotton and place it next to the site of an infection, including toothache and sore throats.

One of the research team, Dr Gerry Quinn, was a former resident of Boho, in County Fermanagh, and had been aware of the healing traditions of the area for many years.

And so the team – from Swansea University Medical School, the Ulster University School of Biomedical Sciences and Croatia’s Laboratory for Molecular Genetics at Ruđer Bošković Institute – went digging.

Salvation might come from witchcraft

Their project is part of growing trend in research known as ethnopharmacology, where ancient folk cures, including the work of witches, are investigated as possible remedies for modern problems.

Most pressing is the search for antibiotics capable of killing drug-resistant superbugs. Currently about 700,000 people die a year because of drug resistance in illnesses caused by bacterial infection, malaria and HIV.

Australian scientists have been notably active in pursuing unlikely remedies. In 2010, CSIRO scientists found a ringlet-shaped protein in platypus milk that held promise as a superbug killer.

In March, University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) was part of an international study that investigated how the crotalidicin peptide found in the venom gland of rattlesnakes could be the basis for an alternative to conventional antibiotics.

If this sounds a little desperate, well … it is.

A report commissioned by former UK prime minister David Cameron – who feared the problem would send humanity back to the “dark ages” – predicts that 10 million people a year will die from the problem by the year 2050.

What the dirt researchers discovered was the new strain of bacterium they have named Streptomyces sp. Myrophorea.

It was found to inhibit the growth of four of the top six multi-resistant pathogens identified by the WHO as posing a particular threat to patients in hospitals and nursing homes. These are:

• Ancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE);
• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA);
• Klebsiella pneumonia;
• Carbenepenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumanii.

The dirt magic was also found to inhibit both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, which differ in the structure of their cell wall. (The “gram” refers to a kind of laboratory staining of bacteria: Positive stains purple, negative stains more red or pink.) Gram-negative bacteria tend to be more resistant to antibiotics.

The researchers don’t know yet the mechanism by which the new strain prevents the growth of the pathogens, but they’re investigating.

Professor Paul Dyson of Swansea University Medical School in a prepared statement said: “Our results show that folklore and traditional medicines are worth investigating in the search for new antibiotics.”

“Scientists, historians and archaeologists can all have something to contribute to this task. It seems that part of the answer to this very modern problem might lie in the wisdom of the past.”

The research was published in October in Frontiers in Microbiology.

Not the first to get their hands dirty

This was the second soil-based discovery of powerful antibiotics in a year.

In February, researchers from Rockefeller University in New York discovered a new strain of antibiotics called malacidins.

They were found in the dirt of a New Jersey farm, and identified genetic sequencing techniques.

Malacidins, which appear to be reliant on calcium, have also proved effective against MRSA infection. Infections in rats were cleared in a day.

Malacidins work by interfering with bacteria’s ability to create cell walls. Perhaps most exciting is that infectious bacteria didn’t develop resistance to the malacidins after being exposed to the drug for three weeks.

The research was published in Nature Microbiology.