The Estimation of Invitro Antibacterial Activity of Ethanolic Extract of Olea Europaea (Olive) and Rosmarinus Officinale (Rosemary) Plant Leaves

Abstract

Medicinal use of plants for the treatment of various diseases has existed since prehistoric era. From ancient times these plants were used in different traditional systems such as traditional chinese medicine (TCM) Ayurveda and homeopathy. Until now a generous portion of the world’s population still uses them to treat their aliments. In this study, the antibacterial activity of ethanolic extract of olive and rosemary leaves was investigated against (E. coli, S. aureus, B. subtilis and, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) by disk diffusion method and correlated the results with the inhibitory zone of gentamicin as standard. The results show that the ethanolic extract of olive and rosemary leaves has antibacterial activity against all four of these bacteria. For olive leaves E.coli shows the zone of inihibiton of 11 mm, S. aureus shows 11.5 mm, B. subtilis shows 7 mm and P. aurgenosa shows the zone of 10 mm. For Rosemary the zones of inhibiton for E.coli and S. aureus was 8.5 mm, B.subtilis shows 11mm and P. aurgenosa shows zone of 15 mm.   These results show that both olive and rosemary leaf extracts have the potential to (A.H) develop new antibacterial agents.