Antimicrobial Potential of anaconda body fat oil (Eunectes murinus), in Santarém city, Pará state, Brazil

Abstract

The use of natural substances from animals and plants has always been the subject of research, because it is made in a rustic way and through popular knowledge, built by everyday experiences and without scientific approval. The oil from the body fat of the snake - or better known as lard of anaconda, extracted from the anaconda snake (Eunectes murinus) is a product widely used in traditional communities and is marketed in markets for therapeutic purposes in several diseases. Because of the low cost and popular beliefs, many people use zootherapeutic means to treat themselves. Hence the importance of therapeutic proof of these products. Thus, the aim of this study was to verify whether the lard of anaconda made in the traditional way has antimicrobial potential in certain strains of pathogenic bacteria and fungi. For that, the evaluation of the lard’s antimicrobial potential was carried out using the disk diffusion method, adapted from the manual M7-A6 standardized by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, against the strains of S. aureus, E. coli, Ç. albicans and C. krusei. The observed results showed that there was no presence of bacterial or yeast growth inhibition halos, indicating that the anaconda lard oil did not inhibit the growth of fungi and bacteria in any of the strains used. Therefore, the present study allows us to conclude that the anaconda lard oil (Eunectes murinus), did not present any inhibitory antimicrobial potential, against the tested bacterial and fungal strains.

Keywords

• traditional knowledge, zootherapy, snake, bacteria.