The Antibacterial Properties of Some Plants Found in Hawaii 
O. A. Bushnell, Mitsuno Fukuda, and Takashi Makinodan 1 
Many of the plants, both indigenous and 
introduced, which now grow in Hawaii have 
been used for medicinal purposes by the na- 
tive Hawaiians and by the people of other 
countries who have come to live in Hawaii. 
When, in 1934, Handy, Pukui, and Liver- 
more made their survey of the Hawaiian 
pharmacopeia, they were able to distinguish 
317 different botanical components in the cat- 
alogue of ingredients used until that time. It 
is probable that many other species of plants 
which are sources of favorite remedies in 
other countries have been imported to Hawaii 
and could be added to the list prepared by 
Handy and his coworkers (1934), who were 
concerned primarily with remedies used by 
the native Hawaiians. 
The Hawaiian remedies, especially those 
derived from the lore of the kahuna lapaau 
laau, the herb doctor of the ancient Hawai- 
ians, have been much praised but they have 
never been critically appraised; and we 
thought that perhaps we could gain some 
idea of their relative value if we studied the 
medicinal plants from which these remedies 
were prepared for evidences of the antibac- 
terial properties they might possess. 
Most of the plants we set out to study were 
chosen from the native Hawaiian materia 
medic a, but we did not exclude plants used 
for medicinal purposes by people of other 
ethnic groups. In some instances, moreover, 
we studied imported plants which were re- 
lated to the species considered to be of value 
by the Hawaiians, even though the imported 
1 Department of Bacteriology, University of 
Hawaii, Honolulu. Manuscript received August 29, 
1949. 
plants were not themselves mentioned in the 
accounts we consulted in preparing our own 
list of plants to be investigated. 
Our list was compiled from several publi- 
cations discussing Hawaiian pharmaceutics 
(Kaaiakamanu and Akina, 1922; Degener, 
1930; Handy, Pukui, and Livermore, 1934; 
Neal, 1948); from suggestions given us by 
a Hawaiian herbalist on plants in current 
usage; and from hearsay and our own per- 
sonal experience with plants used by Japa- 
nese, Chinese, and other ethnic groups in 
Hawaii. In preparing this list, those plants 
which appear to have been used against bac- 
terial infections were selected wherever iden- 
tification of the plant had been established 
and whenever it was likely that we would 
be able to find it in order to test it. The more 
common or the more famous of the medici- 
nal plants were also included in the list, even 
if they had been employed to treat conditions 
obviously having no bacterial etiology. Our 
list, then, is a heterogeneous one, by no means 
confined to the native Hawaiian plants, and 
contains more than 275 entries. 
When we began these studies we expected 
to be able, in time, to study all the plants in 
our list, and therefore were not particularly 
concerned about the order in which we col- 
lected them, taking them in the haphazard 
sequence in which we found them; but now 
the pressure of other duties makes it evident 
that we shall not be able to finish the studies 
as we had planned. Rather than lose the in- 
formation we have obtained, therefore, we 
are recording in this paper the data from our 
observations on the 101 medicinal plants we 
were able to investigate before our studies 
were forced to an end. 
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