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Long before the advent of pharmaceutical antimicrobials, people all over the globe treated themselves and their animals, when afflicted by infectious disease, with substances derived from plants and minerals. Nowadays, as the public becomes more aware of problems stemming from antibiotic over-prescription and misuse, they want suitable alternatives from natural sources.

Potential antimicrobial alternatives span the alphabet from alfalfa to zinc, comprising everything from aromatherapy oils to common food agents to colloidal silver products. In a review of antimicrobial plant products the author stated:

Laboratories of the world have found literally thousands of phytochemicals which have inhibitory effects on all types of microorganisms in vitro. More of these compounds should be subjected to animal and human studies to determine their effectiveness in whole-organism systems, including in particular toxicity studies as well as an examination of their effects on beneficial normal microbiota. Cowan MM. Plant products as antimicrobial agents. Clin Microbiol Rev. 1999 Oct;12(4):564-82. View Abstract

Parasites are well adapted for survival in the human environment. Here they satisfy all their needs, while usually providing no benefit to the host. The result of this one-sided dependency is that it is not in the parasites’ best interests to kill the owner of their new home and in many cases parasites are able to survive for a long time. Such habituation may deprive the host of essential nutrients and usually exposes the host’s tissues to the parasites’ metabolic and degradative products, causing pathological changes in and damage to the host. Obviously, remedies against parasites should subsequently include treatment of the host for clinical and pathological changes induced by the parasites.

A good example of an antiparasitic agent is cinchona bark (quinine), which was used against malaria by the early Peruvians and introduced to the Western World by the Jesuits. Extracts of male fern and of santonin obtained from Artemisia maritima var. anthelmintica were held in high regard as antihelmintics by Theophratus (370–285 B.C.) and Galen (A.D. 130–201) and were also recommended as effective antihelmintics until the 1940s and 1950s.

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