The Journal of Science Extension Research – Vol. 3, 2024
Discussion Indigenous and Aboriginal medical practices have the ability to further develop modern medicine. The Dodonaea Viscosa, hop bush, was used in order to determine whether it had an antimicrobial effect on the three bacterias, E.Coli, B.Subtilis and M.Luteus. The results from the experiment demonstrate that the two, E.coli and M.Luteus, are resistant to the medicinal liquid while B.Subtilis is also resistant but the most susceptible out of the three. This provides evidence to the null hypothesis which states that bacteria and pathogenic agents are not affected by the medicine produced from the Dodonaea Viscosa Purpurea. The main factor that demonstrates the very insignificant effect from the Dodonaea Viscosa Purpurea liquid was the difference of the means and the expected value. For the Dodonaea Viscosa Purpurea medicinal liquid to have been effective the means of the zone of inhibition would of had to have been 15 mm in radius, however the largest average zone of inhibition was for the Micrococcus luteus which had an average radius of 0.93mm. This provided evidence for the null hypothesis. When broken down into its components, Dodonaea Viscosa, has fatty acids and starch that get broken down by the saliva because of amylase, lipase and other enzymes. These chemical compounds become antimicrobial and have a notable activity against different isolated human pathogenic bacterial strains, gram positive (2019, Hossain). This can be seen in the results as Micrococcus Luteus and Bacillus Subtilis are both gram positive and have a higher mean when including outliers. And then Escherichia Coli has the lowest mean and is a gram negative bacteria. Thus the medicine shows to be slightly more impactful on gram positive bacteria then gram negative but they still had a very insignificant effect from the medicine. For this experiment, the subspecies of Dodonaea Viscosa Purpurea was used as it was education.nsw.edu.au
accessible. This variety is a modern version of other traditional subspecies and was bred for looks and aesthetics for gardens. Previous research has utilised different subspecies from Saudi Arabia (2021, Nayeem.N) in which the most common variety is Dodonaea Viscosa Angustifolia (2020,Al-Namazi.A, Al-Ammari.B, Davy.A, Al-Turki.T). Another article utilised hop bush to research its biological and phytochemicals compounds (2019, Hossain). It demonstrates the pharmacological activities of the plant in antidiabetic, antioxidant, antimicrobial and other activities (2019, Hossain). In which the review was conducted with a Dodonaea Viscosa located in Omani, which commonly has the subspecies, Dodonaea Viscosa Angustifolia, like in Saudi Arabia. By using a different, under researched subspecies, it limits the chance for the Purpurea variety to hold a significant antimicrobial effect. All other assortments of Dodonaea Viscosa have been a part of folklore and traditional medicines, except for the Dodonaea Viscosa Purpurea. This is a possible reason as to why the medicinal liquid provided a statistical value (p>0.001) that demonstrates that the plant didn’t affect the bacteria significantly. While this variety of the plant shows an insignificant result, the use of other varieties, like Angustifolia, can be used to advance the research of medicinal plants and traditional medicines. This research may provide a negative result but aids in identifying plants that have medicinal properties. The method is limited in its conduction as the use of human saliva is a differing variable. In aboriginal practices, chewing the Dodonaea Viscosa was used and thus the saliva and plant mixed together (MDNC, 2020). This means that the effectiveness of the plant could depend on the saliva of the individual. This error poses a limitation to the aspects of antiseptic medicine produced and shows a degree of uncertainty in the plant. Another possible limitation is the subspecies. By researching medicinal plants, the advancements of medicine can be enhanced
208
