ANTHROPOS. – International journal of ethnology and linguistics founded in 1906 at Mödling, near Vienna, by Father Wilhelm Schmidt of the Society of the Divine Word, and recently transferred to Fribourg in Switzerland. It appears in four-monthly issues, collected each year into a volume, extensively supplied with illustrations, plates, diagrams, plans, and geographical maps. It publishes writings composed in the principal European languages and in Latin, as well as contributions by scholars and missionaries, on religions, myths, ethical and social life, ergology, etc. Special scientific questions of particular interest are addressed in separate Analecta and Additamenta. The periodical is supported by three series of contributions, respectively ethnological, linguistic, and exploratory in orientation: the latter are the fruit of research conducted in the field by members of the institute among peoples of major ethnological interest. Paolo Dalla Torre
ANTIBIOTICS, from ἀντί = against, and βίος = life. – The term antibiosis was first used, in 1889, by P. Vuillemin to designate certain manifestations of vital competition among microorganisms. More recently it was taken up by S. A. Waksman, E. S. Horning, M. Welsch, and H. B. Woodruff (1942) to designate the action of a category of chemical substances produced by microbial metabolism, capable of inhibiting the multiplication or metabolic activities of other microorganisms. This definition, however, proves increasingly incomplete and inaccurate as our knowledge of antibiosis expands and its boundaries extend, to the point of becoming confused with those of other phenomena of microbicide action and vital competition.
In any event, by a. are meant substances produced by the metabolism of living beings, mostly lower plants, but also higher plants and even animals (M. Pavan). Their chemical constitution, which is perfectly known in the case of only a few of them, is exceedingly complex and varied, and does not permit a definition or delimitation by this means. In their action, which is manifested even at extremely high dilutions, a. display a certain, more or less strict, specificity.
The first observations on antibiosis go back to the very father of bacteriology, Pasteur, who as early as 1877 had noted the antagonistic action exerted by certain saprophytic germs on the anthrax bacillus, and had derived from it hopes of therapeutic applications. Many other scholars observed phenomena of antibiosis in the following decades, and some also attempted certain therapeutic applications, which, however, had little success.
The antibiotic era in medicine was inaugurated only recently, with the discovery of penicillin, identified and studied in 1929 by A. Fleming, and subsequently purified and tested by H. W. Florey, Chain, and a large number of other scholars. Penicillin, produced by a mold, Penicillium notatum, is particularly active in infections caused by cocci and in those caused by spirochetes, and its introduction into therapy brought about a true revolution in the prognosis and course of these diseases, sometimes making it possible to arrest extremely serious pathological conditions within a few hours and rendering favorable prognoses that had previously been absolutely fatal.
A second a. that is acquiring considerable importance in medicine is streptomycin, produced by Streptomyces griseus and discovered and studied by Waksman and his collaborators. This a. acts especially on those germs that do not benefit from penicillin therapy. Particularly important is its therapeutic action in tuberculosis, which, although its limits and possibilities have not yet been completely clarified and defined, has nevertheless aroused great enthusiasm and hope.
Numerous a. have been isolated and studied, but as regards their therapeutic applications, they are still in the experimental phase. Among the best known are: gramicidin, tyrothricin, subtilin, chloromycetin, polymyxin, etc.
Apart from the extremely great practical importance that a. have in medicine, they are also of interest from a purely theoretical point of view. Some have wished to give them a finalistic interpretation, considering them a means of defense by living beings against other living beings in the struggle for life. It cannot be excluded that, at least in certain cases, this may correspond to the truth, but neither should one generalize. Even within the same species of microorganisms, only a few strains are capable of producing a. to any considerable extent, and only under highly particular environmental conditions, such as are encountered only exceptionally in nature. Moreover, antibiotic activity is manifested with particular intensity against germs that are very rarely in vital competition with the microorganism producing the a. Furthermore, germs, as can be established experimentally, manage with relative ease to adapt to the a.: that is, they become antibiotic-resistant.
Thus, even if it may be admitted that antibiosis can constitute one of the many weapons that living beings employ in vital competition, it cannot nevertheless be assigned a strictly finalistic value; rather, it must be recognized that the phenomenon of antibiosis is one of the many wondrous phenomena of harmony and disharmony encountered in the unfathomable mystery of life.