ABSTRACT
The antifungal effects of zinc chloride (znCl), Calcium chloride (CaCl), magnesium chloride (MgCl) as well as soot collected from a local kitchens were tested on five isolated species of the dermatophytes from cases of human dermatophytoses. Of these three metallic salts, ZnCl showed the highest inhibitory effect on the dermatophytes. At a concentration of 0.01 M it showed 100% inhibition on these fungi. Although the other two metallic salts showed some inhibitory effect CaCl at concentration between 0.01 M and 1 M showed only 50% inhibitory effect while MgCl at concentration between 0.1 M and 1 M showed less than 50% inhibitory effect on the fungi. Also soot inhibited the growth of all the dermatophytes tested at concentration between 0.1 and 2%. Trichophyton rubrum and Microspum audouinii appeared to be most sensitive to these compounds compared to the other three species which include T. mentagrophytes, T. tonsurans and M. gypseum.