Antibacterial Activity of Essential Oils of Rosmarinus officinalis , Salvia officinalis and Anthemis nobilis Widespread in the Syrian Coast

According to our study, Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil exhibited higher antibacterial activity against both Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa than this of Salvia officinalis. Samples of 20 g of the rosemary and sage dried leaves, chamomile dried flowers were subjected to hydrodistillation using 200 ml of distilled water for each, the process was obtained by Clevenger-type apparatus for 4 hours, the yield was recorded and the pure oil was saved in sealed glass vials at 4-5 C° until analysis.1 Culture Preparation: Essential oils of rosemary, sage and chamomile were tested against Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 6538) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853). According to our study, Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil exhibited higher antibacterial activity against both Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa than this of Salvia officinalis. MIC of Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil against Staphylococcus aureus was 3.9 gl/ml, which is twice lower than MIC against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is compatible to Hussain A. et al.12, and Bozin et al.13 findings, where Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil exhibited higher antibacterial activity against Grampositive bacteria than against Gram-negative bacteria, and similar to Fu et al.10 where they found that the antimicrobial activity of rosemary essential oil against Pseudomonas aeruginosa was less than against the other bacteria. According to Fu et al., MICs for rosemary oil ranged from 0.125% (v/v) to 1.000 % (v/v)8, which is corresponding to our results of rosemary essential oil (MIC for S. aureus was 0.39% and MIC for P. aeruginosa was 0.78% (v/v).