Antimalarial and antibacterial substances separated from higher plants

With the advent of penicillin many workers sought similar agents that were bacteriostatic or bactericidal in vivo. Such work has stimulated some investi-gators to seek like substances in higher plants. Osborn (1943) and Lucas and Lewis (1944) prepared extracts from a large series of plants and found many to contain inhibitory substances which were active against microorganisms in vitro. The object of the present study was to determine whether crude and refined ex-tracts prepared from wild and domestic higher plants would inhibit the growth of microorganisms such as malaria parasites, nonpathogenic protozoa, bacteria, fungi, and viruses in vitro and in vivo. In an attempt to separate inhibitory substances for malaria parasites, bacteria, and viruses, extracts were prepared from more than 200 wild plants collected in the semiarid region of southeastern Oregon and evaluated. Many of these have been found to contain certain substances which have proved to be bacteriostatic or bactericidal to microorganisms in vitro. The work was done without previous knowledge of work which has been published during the last two years