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cientists have found that extracts
from plants that people used to treat infections during the Civil War have
antimicrobial activity against drug-resistant bacteria.
The tulip poplar is one of the plants the scientists examined.
The
Civil War began in 1861 as a result of growing tensions over slavery and
states' rights between the northern and southern states.
The
southern states had seceded in 1860 and formed the Confederate States of
America.
The
war Civil War ended with the Confederate surrender in 1865.
During
the war, Confederate surgeons did not have reliable access to medicines because
the Union Navy prevented the Confederacy from trading.
As
infection rates rose among the wounded, the Confederate Surgeon General
commissioned a guide to plant remedies.
Francis
Porcher, a botanist and surgeon, compiled a book called Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests.
It lists medicinal plants of the southern states, including plant remedies that
Native Americans and slaves used.
The
Confederate Surgeon General, Samuel Moore, drew from Porcher's work to create a
paper titled "Standard supply table of the indigenous remedies for field
service and the sick in general hospitals."
Studying plant remedies from the Civil War
Scientists
from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, analyzed the properties of extracts from
plants that people used during the Civil War. Their results appear in the
journal Scientific Reports.
Their
findings show that these plants have antimicrobial activity against
multidrug-resistant bacteria linked to wound infections. Specifically, they
were effective against Acinetobacter
baumannii, Staphylococcus
aureus, and Klebsiella
pneumoniae.
Senior
study author Cassandra Quave, an assistant professor at Emory University's
Center for the Study of Human Health and the School of Medicine's Department of
Dermatology, is an ethnobotanist. This is a discipline that studies the uses of
plants in different cultures throughout history.
"Our
findings suggest that the use of these topical therapies may have saved some
limbs, and maybe even lives, during the Civil War," explains Quave.
The
researchers focused on three plant species that Porcher cited that grow on the
Emory campus: the white oak, the tulip poplar, and a shrub called the devil's
walking stick.
They
gathered samples from campus specimens and tested extracts on multidrug-resistant
bacteria.
Testing plants to aid modern wound care
First
study author Micah Dettweiler used the Civil War plant guide for his honors
thesis at Emory. He has a degree in biology and works as a research specialist
in the Quave laboratory.
During
the course of his studies, he was surprised to learn that many Civil War
soldiers died from disease on the battlefield, and how common amputation was as
a medical treatment. The American Battlefield Trust estimate that about 1 in 13 of those who survived the Civil War had to
undergo amputations.
According
to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, at the time of the Civil War,
germ theory and medical training were in their infancy. Doctors used tonics,
iodine, and bromine to treat infections, quinine for malaria, and morphine and chloroform to
reduce pain.
"Our research might one day benefit modern
wound care if we can identify which compounds are responsible for the
antimicrobial activity," says Dettweiler.
Study
co-author Daniel Zurawski — chief of pathogenesis and virulence for the Wound
Infections Department at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver
Spring, MD — believes in learning from the wisdom of our ancestors. He also
hopes that researchers can test these plant compounds in world-renowned models
of bacterial infection.
"Plants
have a great wealth of chemical diversity, which is one more reason to protect
natural environments," concludes Dettweiler.
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