Re: Another serious illness from Arkansas Rainbow gathering

Hi Everybody! This one here is an interesting article because they
compare different
oils against different microbes with a standard in vitro assay. In
vitro vs. in vivo may
skew the results because something like "pus" maybe laudable in real-
life, and is hard
to replicate on a petri dish. I wish they had included some more gram
positives
such as Streptococcus pyogenes in their panel of microbes.

Cinnamon oil was their winner which interests me because Cinnamon has
been
used in topical formulations with Myrrh in some real old-timey
medicines, back
when they just used powders as infusions into oils...

toxicity of eucalyptus oil is reported... not to be used on the faces
of children...

regards, aesc

--------------------------------

BMC Complement Altern Med. 2006 Nov 30;6:39. Links
In vitro antibacterial activity of some plant essential
oils.Prabuseenivasan S, Jayakumar M, Ignacimuthu S.
Entomology Research Institute, Loyola College, Chennai--600 034,
India. prabsri@xxxxxxxxx

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the antibacterial activity of 21 plant
essential oils against six bacterial species. METHODS: The selected
essential oils were screened against four gram-negative bacteria
(Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa,
Proteus vulgaris) and two gram-positive bacteria Bacillus subtilis and
Staphylococcus aureus at four different concentrations (1:1, 1:5, 1:10
and 1:20) using disc diffusion method. The MIC of the active essential
oils were tested using two fold agar dilution method at concentrations
ranging from 0.2 to 25.6 mg/ml. RESULTS: Out of 21 essential oils
tested, 19 oils showed antibacterial activity against one or more
strains. Cinnamon, clove, geranium, lemon, lime, orange and rosemary
oils exhibited significant inhibitory effect. Cinnamon oil showed
promising inhibitory activity even at low concentration, whereas
aniseed, eucalyptus and camphor oils were least active against the
tested bacteria. In general, B. subtilis was the most susceptible. On
the other hand, K. pneumoniae exhibited low degree of sensitivity.
CONCLUSION: Majority of the oils showed antibacterial activity against
the tested strains. However Cinnamon, clove and lime oils were found
to be inhibiting both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.
Cinnamon oil can be a good source of antibacterial agents.

PMID: 17134518 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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