Is traditional medicine better off 25 years later?

Plants hold great promise as a source of novel antimicrobial agents due to a wide variety of chemically and structurally diverse secondary metabolites generally grouped into terpenoids, phenolics and polyphenols, and alkaloids. Historical records and modern investigations highlight the importance of plant products in the treatment of bacterial diseases. Though there are a plethora of antibacterial compounds originating from plants, only a very...