English abstract
Lawsonia inermis (henna plant) has been used in herbal medicine
for ages. However, the medical benefits of this plant have been
discussed in only a few publications. In this study, the antibacterial
effects of water, alcoholic and oily extracts of Lawsonia inermis
leaves against bacterial cultures isolated from various skin
diseases were investigated and compared with Tetracycline,
Ampicillin ,Gentamicin and Ciprofloxacin antibiotics. Cultures
of Staphylococcus aureus Staphylococcus epidermidis (Co-agulase
negative staphylococci or CONS), ß-hemolytic streptococci and
Pseudomonas aeruginosa species were obtained from 74 (35 females,
39 males) patients with different skin infections who attended the
Dermatology outpatient clinic in Basra General Hospital. The
bacterial isolates were treated with L. inermis extracts in vitro.
Alcoholic and oily extracts were more effective than the water
extract which had no effects using standard method of NCCL,
2000.
Alcoholic extracts had the highest antibacterial activity with a
MIC of 0.125-0.150 µg/ml against ß-hemolytic streptococci and
against CONS was 0.125-175 µg/ml .Oily extracts had a MIC
of 0.25-0.30 µg/ml against Staphylococcus epidermidis (cons).
Both alcoholic and oily extracts had the same MIC (0.5 µg/ml)
on Staphylococcus aureus. However, alcoholic extracts were more
effective on Pseudomonas aeruginosa with a MIC of 0.5-0.57 µg/ml
than oily extract (MIC of 0.20-0.28 µg/ml). However, there were
no statically differences between the effects of oily and alcoholic
henna extracts (p= 0.050).
When comparing the extracts' MICs with those of antibiotics,
alcoholic extracts showed pronounced antibacterial effects against
the isolated bacteria in vitro but oily extracts had much similar
MICs to those of antibiotics and there are significant difference
between effect of both extracts and antibiotics p>0.050.
