Antimicrobial activity of essential oils against certain bacterial species

Abstract

Essential oil extracted from plants not only used as drugs but also for controlling different insects and as medicine to prevent skin diseases. Plants have supplied over 25% of prescription drugs used in human medicine and such pharmacologically active plants have also lead to natural pesticide. The present study is carried out to check the antibacterial activities of different essential oils namely Black seed oil, Castor oil, Clove oil, Mustard oil and Neem oil on different bacterial species viz. Bacillus cereus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Proteus vulgaris and Staphylococcus lactis through disc diffusion method and their zone of inhibition was measured using zone measuring scale. Among all the bacterial strains Lactobacillus acidophilus resulted the lowest antibacterial activity against all the essential oils. All the essential oils showed maximum to minimum antimicrobial activity against all the bacterial species and some also no activity.