Antiseptic Surgery
treatment to kill germs in accidental wounds, and surgical operations. The use of antiseptic dressings in surgery has become universal. The deaths caused by wounds of all kinds have greatly decreased. In wounds received on the battle-field, the treatment has been especially successful. As is known, the danger lies in inflammation and pus formation, which is caused chiefly by two varieties of germs, the staphylococcus pyogenes. The germ itself does not do the harm, but it secretes a poison which causes inflammation and suppuration. By preventing the entrance of these germs into bullet wounds by the application of first-aid dressings, which soldiers carry with them and use as soon as they are wounded, and by the thorough antiseptic treatment of such wounds by surgeons, the inflammation and suppuration which formerly took so many lives have been most effectively prevented. In the World War the Carrelirrigating method, by which a wound was constantly laved by an antiseptic fluid, met with extraordinary success.
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Antispasmodics
medicines which prevent or allay spasms. Among them may be mentioned valerian, asafœtida, camphor, ammonia, alcohol, ether, chloroform, etc. In all spasmodic diseases, cold baths or sponging, sun-baths, moderate exercise, and a plain but nutritious diet should be employed.
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Antithesis
a sharp opposition of contrast between word and word, clause and clause, sentence and sentence, or sentiment and sentiment, especially designed to impress the listener or reader.
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Antitoxine
the name given to a remedy for diphtheria. The diphtheritic toxine produced by cultivating the bacillus of diphtheria in broth, in the presence of air, is injected in increasing amounts into an animal, preferably the horse, until it is immunized, or rendered insusceptible to diphtheria. The serum of the animal thus rendered immune may then be injected into the system of a person suffering from diphtheria, with generally successful results. The decrease of deaths from this disease since the introduction of this remedy is remarkable, and in most large cities it is provided free to all unable to pay for the medicine. Among other antitoxines the most important are the antitoxine of tetanus and the antitoxine of snake poison.
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Antlia
or ANTLIA PNEUMATICA, one of the 14 southern constellations placed in the heavens by Lacaille in cOL nection with his work at the Cape of Good Hope in 1751-1752. It is situated between Vela, Pyxis, Hydra, and Centaurus.
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Antofagasta
a province in northern Chile, extending the whole width of the country. Next to the sparsely inhabited Magallanes territory it is the largest province in the country, covering an area of 46,408 square miles. It was ceded by Bolivia to Chile in 1884. It is one of the richest sections of the world in the ores of precious metals. Pop. (1917) 205,662. Antofagasta, its capital and principal seaport, is the terminus of a railroad that extends to the rich mining sections in the northeast. It also ships much ore, nitrate of soda, and bullion, and contains silver-smelting works. Pop. about 60,000.
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Antommarchi
CARLO FRAN- CESCO (-mar'kē), an Italian physician, born in Corsica in 1780; was Professor of Anatomy at Florence when he offered himself as physician of Napoleon at St. Helena. Napoleon left him a legacy of 100,000 francs. On his return to Europe he published the "Derniers Moments de Napoléon" (2 vols., 1823). He died in 1838.
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Antoninus
Wall of, a military defense constructed by the Romans in Britain about 140 A. D. It led from Old Kirkpatrick on the Clyde to the Firth of Forth, a distance of twenty-seven miles. The work was designed to keep out the northern barbarians. It consisted of a ditch about twenty feet deep and forty wide; a breastwork of earth and stones, twenty-four feet thick at the base and about twenty feet high, and a military road following the south side of the wall from Clyde to Forth. The work was protected by a chain of nineteen forts with watch towers at frequent intervals. A force of Roman soldiers kept constant guard. Traces of the wall may still be found. The defense was named for Emperor Antoninus Pius, during whose reign it was constructed. See Hadrian 2026 Editor's Note: The Antonine Wall — Rome's northernmost frontier, briefly held beyond Hadrian's more famous wall — is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its turf ramparts and forts protected as part of the 'Frontiers of the Roman Empire.' The Romans abandoned it within a generation and fell back south. (Ed: BR 2026-06-18)
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Antoninus
. See Marcus Aurelius
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Antoninus Pius
TITUS AURE- LIUS FULVUS, Roman emperor, was born at Lavinium near Rome, A. D. 86. In A. D. 120 he became consul, and he was one of the four persons of consular rank among whom Hadrian divided the supreme administration of Italy. He then went as proconsul to Asia. In A. D. 138 he was selected by that emperor as his successor, and the same year he ascended the throne. The persecutions of the Christians he speedily abolished. In Britain he extended the Roman dominion, and stopped the invasions of the Picts and Scots. He died in A. D. 161, and was succeeded by Marcus Aurelius, his adopted son.
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Antony and Cleopatra
one of Shakespeare's tragedies. It was written and produced on the stage in 1607. It was printed first in the Folio of 1623. The source of the plot is North's Plutarch. In the first three acts Shakespeare followed the historical narrative more closely than in any of his other plays. See Shakespeare In the fourth and fifth acts Shakespeare's method changes, and he expands his material with magnificent freedom. The whole theme is in his hands instinct with a dramatic grandeur which lifts into sublimity even Cleopatra's moral worthlessness and Antony's criminal infatuation. . . . Into the smallest as into the greatest personages Shakespeare breathed all his vitalising fire. The "happy valiancy" of the style, too--to use Coleridge's admirable phrase--sets the tragedy very near the zenith of Shakespeare's achievement, and while differentiating it from Macbeth, Othello, and Lear, renders it a very formidable rival.--Sidney Lee. 2026 Editor's Note: The play gave English one of its most famous descriptions — Enobarbus on Cleopatra , 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety' — and fixed the template for every later Antony and Cleopatra, down to the lavish 1963 film whose off-screen romance of Taylor and Burton nearly eclipsed the story. (Ed: BR 2026-06-14)
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