ABSTRACT
The natural products and herbal medicine industry have become increasingly popular over the past three decades (Hamburger and Hostettmann, 1991; Shu, 1998). The recognition of the value of traditional medical systems, particularly of Asian origin, and identication of indigenous medicinal plants that have shown to have healing power (Elvin Lewis, 2001) are factors that have had signicant inuence in the expansion of the natural product industry. Furthermore, there is a constant search for new and effective drugs, in order to overcome a number of pathogenic organism which are resistant to many therapeutic products available in market.
