Ethiopian traditional herbal drugs. Part II: Antimicrobial activity of 63 medicinal plants.

A total of 315 extracts/fractions from 63 traditionally used Ethiopian plants were subjected to antimicrobial screening using known strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella gallinarum, Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Candida albicans. The agar plate well-diffusion method was used at a sample concentration of 1000 micrograms/ml; it was found that all of the plants showed activity against one or more of the microorganism(s). Direct aqueous extracts from six plants were found to be active against all of the test organisms. These findings confirm traditional therapeutic claims for aqueous dosage forms of these herbs. The relative susceptibility of the test organisms to the five types of extracts/fractions indicated a decreasing rank order of: S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, C. albicans, S. gallinarum, E. coli, K. pneumoniae and P. vulgaris.