Mesalazine and the Palermo Catacombs in Sicily

Been wondering about this, although I know no one can answer...

I was recently reading about the catacombs in Palermo, Sicily. An underground burial area where bodies were embalmed so that they were preserved and lasted for many decades (if you don't know it and are not freaked out by it, you can Google images of the bodies). I read that the "recipe" was lost for years and then re-found and that one of the main ingredients was salicylic acid. It describes it as a potent anti-fungal that kept fungus away from the dead flesh (sorry for graphic description).

This got me thinking about mesalazine, which is derived from salicylic acid. Medics have always told me that they don't really understand the mechanism of how and why mesalazine helps UC. I am aware that it has anti-inflammatory properties but I wondered if there is something anti-fungal there too, chasing away an unidentified fungi from the bowel - but then surely that fungi would have been identified by now?