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The effect of 100 polar and 100 nonpolar plant extract materials obtained from Southeast Asia were evaluated for amebicidal activity in vitro against three species of Acanthamoeba. A. culbertsoni, A. castellanii, and A. polyphaga, the causative agents of granulomatous amebic encephalitis and amebic keratitis, were studied in vitro to determine whether the plant extracts exhibited amebicidal activity or induced encystment of the amebae. Of the 200 plant extracts tested, extracts obtained from three plants (Ipomoea sp., Kaempferia galanga, and Cananga odorata) were amebicidal for all three species of Acanthamoeba and a fourth extract prepared from Gastrochilus panduratum was lytic for A. polyphaga and growth-inhibitory for A. castellanii and A. culbertsoni. Three plant extracts induced encystment of all three species of Acanthamoeba. Select plant extracts were tested as well for tumoricidal activity against B103 neuroblastoma cells. Some plant extracts that exhibited tumoricidal activity for B103 cells were not amebicidal for Acanthamoeba spp. Additionally, the polar and nonpolar extracts that exhibited amebicidal activity were also tested for activity against primary murine peritoneal macrophage cultures. Plant extracts that demonstrated tumoricidal or amebicidal activity were not lytic for normal macrophage cultures.

No abstract

Since the above was written, Messrs. Savory and Moore have received the root, and it is now on sale.

point, I will proceed to submit for your inspection experimental results which will give you an idea of the amount of real assistance that can be expected to be artificially given through digestion towards assimilation by specimens such as these, with but a single exception-specimens that I purchased from our leading establishments in London as pepsine, or the digestive principle.