Enumeration of Pathological Organisms of Coliforms and Salmonella on Selected Ayurvedic Botanical Preparations

Plant materials are basic ingredients of Ayurveda preparations and contain natural inherent microbial flora that can potentially become contaminated during processing. Considering these facts the World Health Assembly (WHA) has emphasized the need for microbial quality standards of medicinal plant products. The objective of this study was to enumerate Coliforms and Salmonella in market samples of Dashamoola Arista, Pippalyadi Asawa, Visarpahara Oil and Sarva Visadi Oil. Samples from various manufactures were subjected to this study. Coliforms and Salmonella were tested according to the ISO 9308–2-1990 (E) standards. Coliforms were tested using the most probable number technique. Tubes displaying acid and gas production were considered positive for Coliforms. For the Salmonella test 1.0ml of the drug sample was transferred into 20ml of sterile buffer peptone and incubated for 24 hours. 1.0ml of this peptone was transferred to 10ml of sterile Tetrathionate broth and Selenite broth and incubated at 37⁰C for 36 hours. This broth was streaked on sterile Bismuthsulphite and Brilliant Green Bile agar. Black colonies and pink colonies were considered as positive for Salmonella respectively. These colonies were again streaked on nutrient agar plates and tested for Salmonella. Indole test, Urease test, and Kliglers Iron agar test were done as pre-assumption tests. These procedures were repeated thrice on each sample for confirmation of the results.

None of the drug samples were positive for Coliforms or Salmonella. Results of the present study revealed that the tested samples were free from these pathogenic microorganisms and are up to the WHA microbial quality standard.

Acknowledgement: Financial assistance by National Science Foundation (NSF) Sri Lanka Grant No. RG/2001/TM/01