Abstract
FROM the earliest times, writes E. M. Osborn (Brit. J. Exp. Path., 24, 227; 1943), plants have been used in the attempt to cure disease. After giving a brief summary of recent work on the well-known occurrence of antibacterial substances in green plants, he records the results of his own investigation of about 2,300 different green plants, most of them flowering plants. All the plants used were freshly picked and all available parts of them were tested. The method of testing used was the diffusion method of Abraham and other Oxford workers (The Lancet, ii, 177; 1941), the antibacterial substance being tested' against Staphylococcus aureus and Bacterium coli. The test shows only the presence or absence of theantibacterial substance and is not quantitative. A negative result does not necessarily prove the absence of the antibacterial substances, and the possibility of their destruction by enzymes must also be remembered.
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Antibacterial Substances in Green Plants. Nature 153, 598 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153598a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153598a0