I saw a little blurb about soil from the grave of Father James McGirr was healing people in Ireland... so I did a super quick search and found some articles showing that this story was indeed based on facts. (Hey, you know social media is aften AI slop at this point! Ha ha).
".......Out here in the Boho Highlands, part of the West Fermanagh Scarplands, five miles from the border with the Republic of Ireland, there’s a longstanding belief among parishioners that the earth Father McGirr was buried under had almost miraculous curative powers. “The good father is said to have been a faith healer,” says Gerry Quinn, a microbiologist who grew up in the area. “On his deathbed he supposedly declared: ‘After I die, the clay that covers me will cure anything that I was able to cure when I was with you while I was alive.’” This led to a curious local custom: Petitioners will kneel beside the plot, remove a thumbnail-size patch of dirt and put it into a cotton pouch. “They will then bring the packets home—taking pains not to speak to anyone they encountered on the road—and place the pouches under their pillows,” Quinn says. “The soil is believed to alleviate many minor ailments, like flesh wounds and sore throats.”"
__________________________________
".........Back in the lab, a special protocol was used to isolate what turned out to be eight strains of Streptomyces from the Boho soil. Luciana Terra, a team member from Brazil, then went on to the next step, pitting the Streptomyces against some common pathogens. Eventually, the genomes were sequenced by growing each individual bacterium on a separate agar plate, extracting the DNA, reading the DNA fragments in a sequencer and comparing the sequence with known Streptomyces strains.
The new strains were then cage-matched with superbugs. To the research team’s surprise, the strain inhibited both gram-positive bacilli and gram-negative, which differ in cell-wall structure; the gram-negative are generally more resistant to antibiotics because of the relative thickness of their cell walls.
But what to call the new bacterium? Owing to its sweet, woody, wintergreen oil-like aroma, Quinn suggested the not-particularly-lyrical Streptomyces Alkaline Fragrance. A friend suggested myrophorea, a Greek-derived name for the myrrh-bearing women in the New Testament who found the tomb of Jesus empty after the Resurrection. “The Myrrhbearers were known as ‘The Carriers of the Fragrance,’” Quinn explains. “What could be more fitting?”
After Terra had processed the samples, Quinn, on his next trip to Boho, dumped what remained of the soil back onto Father McGirr’s grave. “Sure, I’m a scientist,” he says, deadpan, “but why take unnecessary risks?”"
Here is an article you can read if you wish - or look up on your own.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/astonishing-medical-potential-soil-northern-ireland-graveyard-180973741/
