Antibacterial Activity of Important Medicinal Plants on Human Pathogenic Bacteria-a Comparative Analysis

The use of plants in treatment of burns, dermatophytes and infectious diseases is common in traditional medicine. Based on ethno pharmacological and taxonomic information, antibacterial activities of aqueous and methanol extracts of some medicinal plants were determined by in vitro by agar diffusion-method against some human pathogenic bacteria. The leaves of five different plants, belonging to the different family and which have some ethnomedicinal applications were studied for antibacterial activity. Powdered leaf materials of all selected plants were extracted with aqueous and methanol. The solvent extracts were evaporated to dryness using rotary flash evaporator. Dry residue was dissolved in methanol (1:10 w/v) and tested for antibacterial activity. The antibacterial screening of aqueous and methanol extract carried out in vitro on the following bacteria viz., Bacillus cereus, Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus faecalis and Yersinia enterocolitica. It has been showed that the methanol extracts had wider range of activity on these organisms than the aqueous extracts, which indicates that the methanol extracts of all selected plants may contain the active components. This study supports, the traditional medicines (herbal extracts) to cure many diseases like diarrhea, intestinal tract, throat, ear infections, fever and skin diseases.