Abstract
Mentha pulegium, a species of Lamiaceae family, is flowering plant native to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Crushed M. pulegium leaves exhibit a very strong fragrance like spearmint. The objective of the study was to investigate the phytochemical constituents and antibacterial activity of M. pulegium stems and leaves vacuum liquid chromatography (VLC) fractions. The powdered leaves and stems were macerated with absolute methanol then filtered using Buchner system. The filtrate was evaporated, then submitted to VLC using different solvents, and their fractions were collected. Phytochemical screening tests were done to investigate the chemical composition of methanol extract. The antibacterial effect of both methanol crude and the five extracts was studied on gram positive (S. aureus and S. haemolyticus) and gram negative (P. aeruginosa and K. pneumoniae) bacteria using minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC). The results indicat.....