ABSTRACT

Traditional medicine is still recognized as the preferred primary health care system in many communities, with over 60% of the world’s population and about 80% in developing countries depending directly on medicinal plants for their medical purposes. This is due to a number of reasons including affordability, accessibility and low cost. Hence this study was carried out to determine the antimicrobial activities of Spondia mombin Linn dried leaves extract on microbes associated with the human mouth. Plant samples were obtained from a tree in front of student lecture theater, University of Benin. The dried leaves of S. mombin were cleaned to remove adhering dust particles and later extracted with hot aqueous solution. Following standard procedure the medium prepared was used to culture bacteria (nutrient agar) and fungi (malt extract agar). Agar well diffusion method was also used to determine the antimicrobial activities of the plant extract against the isolated microbes. The results shows that Among the various concentrations of extracts studied, 100 g/L and 150 g/L showed the higher degree of inhibition on Staphylococcus aureus (15 mm and 18 mm), Pseudomonas aeroginosa (13 mm and 16 mm) and Streptococcus sp. (14 mm and 17 mm). The aqueous extract showed minimum inhibitory effect on fungi species such as Saccharomyces sp. (14 mm), Candida sp. (14 mm), Mucor sp. (14 mm) and Aspergillus sp (14 mm) respectively. The results also shows that media prepared with S. mombin dried leaves extractshowed no fungi and bacteria growth compared with media prepared without the plant extract. However further studies are therefore advocated to understand the mechanism behind this wide range of antimicrobial activities and determine the unknown bioactive substances present in the plant extract.