EVALUATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL AND ANTIFUNGAL PROPERTY OF DHOOPANA KARMA (FUMIGATION) – BY “DHUP”AN AYURVEDIC DHOOPANA PRODUCT

There are millions of micro-organisms around us, amongst 20-25% are non pathogenic. Pathogenic microbes present in the environment around us are responsible for various health related problems.  Reducing microbial load to non-pathogenic levels may be the purpose of traditional fumigation techniques like Dhoopana, Homa, and Havana etc. This is also evident from Ayurvedic literature wherein fumigation is indicated for sterilisation of operation theatres as well as labour theatres and also in wound management. Taking all these into consideration, in present study an attempt is made to estimate anti microbial effect of Dhoopana of an indigenous fumigation formulation ‘DHUP’. Two rooms of same size which are in routine usage in almost similar fashion were selected for the study. One room served as control without any intervention. In the second room Dhoopana was performed once daily for two days. In both the rooms agar gel plates were exposed at selected places and efficacy of DHUP Dhoopana was noted at selected intervals. The microbial load was estimated and subjected to statistical analysis. The study revealed that the effect of Dhoopana was significant in comparison to control both during study period and follow up period up to 6 days aganist bacteria and fungus