Plant essential oils and extracts have been used for many thousands of

years in food preservation, pharmaceuticals, alternative medicine and

natural therapies. Essential oils are potential sources of novel antimicrobial
compounds especially against bacterial pathogens. 

In this study it showed that the essential oils inhibited bacterial growth but
their effectiveness varied. Among the two oils analyzed in this investigation,
the essential oil of cinnamon was the most effective as an antibacterial
agent. The antibacterial activity has been attributed to the presence of some
active constituents in the oil. Cinnamaldehyde is the major constituent of
cinnamon oil. Cinnamaldehyde is the predominant active compound found
in cinnamon oil. Pre-experiment research suggested that the antibacterial
activity of cinnamon oil was probably due to their major component,
cinnamaldehyde and their properties could be multiple. Cinnamaldehyde is
a natural antioxidant. Within the curry oil, a monomeric protein is
responsible for its anti-bacterial properties. The protein designated as APC
(antioxidant protein from curry leaves) demonstrates potent antibacterial
activity but inhibits less growth than cinnamaldehyde. APC is devoid of
ribonuclease/deoxyribonuclease and protease activity. APC is non-toxic.
With reference to the table for the first bacteria; as predicted the control
inhibited less or close to no growth, the curry oil inhibited some amount of
growth as it was slower and the results much less abundant than the
control and lastly the cinnamon oil inhibited the most growth as the
bacterial growth was more sparse than the curry oil and control.

The second bacteria cultured under the control, curry oil and cinnamon oil
showed the results as follows; the control showed the least inhibited growth
as expected, the curry oil showed very appeasing results as it substantially
controlled the bacterial growth and the cinnamon oil controlled the size of
the bacterial growth but the number of cultures slowly increased. This
shows a slight change in the behaviour of the cinnamon oil toward different
bacteria

The third bacteria cultured shows the results as follows; the control as
predicted inhibited the least growth, the curry oil; inhibited some amount
of growth still allowing for more production of bacteria while the cinnamon
oil throughout the five days observed only allowed for some growth on the
second day and completely inhibited the growth for the other three days.

Conclusion
From this study it can be concluded that both essential oils possess
antibacterial activity. Cinnamon oil has the most potential ant bactericidal
properties.