Finding healing powers in plants is an ancient idea. People on all continents have long applied poultices and imbibed infusions of hundreds, if not thousands, of indigenous plants, dating back to prehistory. There is evidence that Neanderthals living 60,000 years ago in present-day Iraq used plants such as hollyhock (211, 224); these plants are still widely used in ethnomedicine around the world. Historically, therapeutic results have been mixed; quite often cures or symptom relief resulted. Poisonings occurred at a high rate, also. Currently, of the one-quarter to one-half of all pharmaceuticals dispensed in the United States having higher-plant origins, very few are intended for use as antimicrobials, since we have relied on bacterial and fungal sources for these activities. Since the advent of antibiotics in the 1950s, the use of plant derivatives as antimicrobials has been virtually nonexistent.
