Background: Zingiber officinale Roscoe (Zingiberaceae) is a rhizomatous perennial herb found in tropical Asia. It is extensively used worldwide as a spice, flavoring agent and herbal remedy for cold, throat and chest infections and cough. The present study was carried out to analyse an essential oil from the fresh rhizomes of Z. officinale of Ghaziabad region and to evaluate its antimicrobial activity. Materials and Methods: The fresh rhizomes were hydrodistilled to get the essential oil which was analysed by GC and GC-MS techniques. The oil was evaluated for antimicrobial activity by disc diffusion method. Results and Discussion: The essential oil was characterized by high percentage of sesquiterpenes (66.66%), monoterpenes (17.28%) and aliphatic compounds (13.58%). The predominant sesquiterpene was zingiberene (46.71%) followed by valencene (7.61%), β-funebrene (3.09%) and selina-4(14),7(11)-diene (1.03%). The major monoterpenes were characterized as citronellyl n-butyrate (19.34%), β-phellandrene (3.70%), camphene (2.59%) and α-pinene (1.09%). The essential oil exhibited significant antimi-crobial activity against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger. Conclusion:The essential oil mainly contained a large number of sesquiterpenes and monoterpenes and exhibited significant antimicrobial activity against pathogenic microorganisms.

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Parasitic diseases cause extreme horribleness by influencing population in endemic areas with major economic and social outcomes. More than half of the population of the world suffers from various types of infection and majority of cattle suffer from worm infections. So there is a need to find new drugs to treat parasitic diseases.Methanolic extract from the leaves of Macaranga denticulata Muell. Arg. (Euphorbiaceae) was investigated for their anthelmintic activity against Pheretima posthuma. Three concentrations (25, 50 and 100 mg/ml) of the extract were studied, which involved the determination of time of paralysis and time of death of the worm. It was found that this extract exhibited significant anthelmintic activity. Albendazole in 10 mg/ml concentration was included as standard reference and 0.5% CMC as a control. Results showed that the methanolic extract was potent as it took near time of highest concentration (100 mg/ml) to cause paralysis and death of the earthworms as compared to the standard reference drug.