Pharmacognostical, Phyto-Chemical and Antibacterial Studies of Some Unani Drugs used in Infectious Diseases

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious problem in terms of clinical and public health. In-spite the successes of the Millennium Development Goals since 2000, the inhabitants of low-income countries still suffer of an enormous burden of disease owing to diarrhoea, pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever, meningitis, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Regardless of the origin of resistance of antibiotics, the fact is that the number of new resistant microorganisms grows faster than the development of new drugs. Therefore, the search for alternative therapies is imperative. Unani System of Medicine (USM) may be considered as personalized medicine which corrects the imbalance in the four humors- (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) which occur due to entry of any infective organism in the body. So, drugs correct the imbalance of the humours and aid in regaining health with bactericidal and bacteriostatic activities. Present study provides an in-vitro efficacy of traditionally used medicinal herbs of Unani System of Medicine (USM) viz. Glycyrrhiza glabra Linn. (Asl-us-soos), Cassia fistula Linn. (Maghz-e-Khayar Shamber) and Adiantum capillus-veneris (Parsiyaoshan) in terms of their antibacterial activity against various gram positive and gram negative bacterial strains using Agar well and Kirby Bauer's disk diffusion method according to CLSI guidelines. The efficacy was compared with the standard drugs used as positive control viz. Ciprofloxacin for gram positive strains and Gentamicin as gram negative strains and the solvent used to dissolve the test drug Dimethyl Sulphoxide (DMSO) as negative control. Pharmacognostical and Phytochemical analysis was also done as review of literature and standardization methods were followed to confirm the authenticity and presence of various phyto-active constituents present in the test drugs. The study demonstrates test drugs to be considered as effective drug target for further screening and its wider use in medicine.