Abstract

For ages, the main source of ink for writing documents and books has been natural dyes and vegetable inks. Biochemists have identified these natural inks and dyes that act as antibacterial and anti-fungal agent whereby they protect the historical writings and documents from bacterial or fungal infections. It also acts as moth deterrents. Natural colorants derived from plants have been used for at least 4,000 years as dyes and inks for writing because of their antimicrobial properties. Thus, documents and books written with these inks have survived moisture, humidity, and microbial degradation or deterioration. The type of ink used to write books or documents have forensic relevance. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to understand the antimicrobial properties of older dyes and inks compared to today’s inks and their comparative antimicrobial activity. Fountain pen ink and gel pen pigments are water-based but even then their antimicrobial activity have been clearly seen against 5 different bacterial strains in the present study. Against all the bacterial strains, ball pen ink and gel ink demonstrated the greatest Inhibition region. It was also deduced from the results that of all the three, the black ink gave the maximum zone of Inhibition and toxicity to all the five strains of Gram -ve as well as Gram +ve bacterial strain. Thus the study proves that the ink pigments have high antibacterial effect and that both printed and written documents and manuscripts could be preserved without the fear of deterioration.

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