Civil War plant medicines blast drug-resistant bacteria in lab tests
(PHYSorg.com Biology)

During the height of the Civil War, the Confederate Surgeon General commissioned a guide to traditional plant remedies of the South, as battlefield physicians faced high rates of infections among the wounded and shortages of conventional medicines. A new study of three of the plants from this guide-the white oak, the tulip poplar and the devil`s walking stick-finds that they have antiseptic properties.