A review on antimicrobial efficacy of some traditional medicinal plants in Tamilnadu

Infectious diseases are one of the major problems in developing as well as developed countries. Traditional medicinal plants are widely used to treat the microbial diseases due to their rich source of antimicrobial activity and less cost. The different plant parts such as seed, fruit, root, bark, stem, leaf and even the whole plant were extracted using different solvents like ethanol, methanol, chloroform, acetone, petroleum ether, alcohol, and ethyl acetate. These extracts were tested by diffusion method against gram positive, gram negative bacteria and fungi to assess their antimicrobial activity. This review provides a lucid data of nearly 70 traditional medicinal plants with antimicrobial activity and this would open up the scope for further analysis of medicinal plant extracts to develop effective antimicrobial drugs.