A review on medicinal plants; An emphasis on antimicrobial effects

More than 80% of the world's population relies on traditional medicine (Herbal extracts or their active ingredients) for their health needs for their health needs. In addition, more than 50% of all modern clinical drugs are of natural origin. Herbs may have the ability to treat bacterial resistance to many types of antibiotics. One of the benefits of using the herbs is their multiple effects. In particular, many plants have a high ability to fight bacterial and fungal pathogens. Given the number of chemical compounds in plants, it is not possible to consider a single mechanism for their antibacterial effects, but they have multiple purposes in the cell. Also, the antimicrobial mechanisms are very different depending on the composition of the plant. Since the antibacterial effect of medicinal plants depends significantly on the phytochemical properties of the family and subfamily, it is not surprising that differences in the antibacterial effect of samples taken from the same plant from two different regions are observed. In traditional Iranian medicine, the use of herbs in the treatment of burns, skin disorders, infectious diseases, sepsis and inflammation is common. Because there are no standard criteria for evaluating plant antimicrobial activity, the results vary widely from author to author. Standardizing extraction methods and in vitro tests to search for new antimicrobial drugs from plants will be very useful so that the results are more systematic and their interpretation is simpler and more accurate.