ANKYLOSIS, or Anchylosis (from Gr. ἀγκύλος, bent, crooked), a stiffness of a joint, the result of injury or disease. The rigidity may be complete or partial and may be due to inflammation of the tendinous or muscular structures outside the joint or of the tissues of the joint itself. When the structures outside the joint are affected, the term “false” ankylosis has been used in contradistinction to “true” ankylosis, in which the disease is within the joint. When inflammation has caused the joint-ends of the bones to be fused together the ankylosis is termed osseous or complete. Excision of a completely ankylosed shoulder or elbow may restore free mobility and usefulness to the limb. “Ankylosis” is also used as an anatomical term, bones being said to ankylose (or anchylose) when, from being originally distinct, they coalesce, or become so joined together that no motion can take place between them.
ANKYLOSTOMIASIS, or Anchylostomiasis (also called helminthiasis, “miners’ anaemia,” and in Germany Wurmkrankheit), a disease to which in recent years much attention has been paid, from its prevalence in the mining industry in England, France, Germany, Belgium, North Queensland and elsewhere. This disease (apparently known in Egypt even in very ancient times) caused a great mortality among the negroes in the West Indies towards the end of the 18th century; and through descriptions sent from Brazil and various other tropical and sub-tropical regions, it was subsequently identified, chiefly through the labours of Bilharz and Griesinger in Egypt (1854), as being due to the presence in the intestine of nematoid worms (Ankylostoma duodenalis) from one-third to half an inch long. The symptoms, as first observed among the negroes, were pain in the stomach, capricious appetite, pica (or dirt-eating), obstinate constipation followed by diarrhoea, palpitations, small and unsteady pulse, coldness of the skin, pallor of the skin and mucous membranes, diminution of the secretions, loss of strength and, in cases running a fatal course, dysentery, haemorrhages and dropsies. The parasites, which cling to the intestinal mucous membrane, draw their nourishment from the blood-vessels of their host, and as they are found in hundreds in the body after death, the disorders of digestion, the increasing anaemia and the consequent dropsies and other cachectic symptoms are easily explained. The disease was first known in Europe among the Italian workmen employed on the St Gotthard tunnel. In 1896, though previously unreported in Germany, 107 cases were registered there, and the number rose to 295 in 1900, and 1030 in 1901. In England an outbreak at the Dolcoath mine, Cornwall, in 1902, led to an investigation for the home office by Dr Haldane F.R.S. (see especially the Parliamentary Paper, numbered Cd. 1843), and since then discussions and inquiries have been frequent. A committee of the British Association in 1904 issued a valuable report on the subject. After the Spanish-American War American physicians had also given it their attention, with valuable results; see Stiles (Hygienic Laboratory Bulletin, No. 10, Washington, 1903). The American parasite described by Stiles, and called Uncinaria americana (whence the name Uncinariasis for this disease) differs slightly from the Ankylostoma. The parasites thrive in an environment of dirt, and the main lines of precaution are those dictated by sanitary science. Malefern, santonine, thymol and other anthelmintic remedies are prescribed.
ANNA, BALDASARRE, a painter who flourished during part of the 16th and 17th centuries. He was born at Venice, probably about 1560, and is said to have been of Flemish descent. The date of his death is uncertain, but he seems to have been alive in 1639. For a number of years he studied under Leonardo Corona, and on the death of that painter completed several works left unfinished by him. His own activity seems to have been confined to the production of pieces for several of the churches and a few private houses in Venice, and the old guide-books and descriptions of the city notice a considerable number of paintings by him. Scarcely any of these, however, have survived.
ANNA (Hindustani ana), an Indian penny, the sixteenth part of a rupee. The term belongs to the Mahommedan monetary system (see [Rupee]). There is no coin of one anna, but there are half-annas of copper and two-anna pieces of silver. The term anna is frequently used to express a fraction. Thus an Anglo-Indian speaks of two annas of dark blood (an octoroon), a four-anna (quarter) crop, an eight-anna (half) gallop.
ANNA AMALIA (1739-1807), duchess of Saxe-Weimar, daughter of Charles I., duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was born at Wolfenbüttel on the 24th of October 1739, and married Ernest, duke of Saxe-Weimar, 1756. Her husband died in 1758, leaving her regent for their infant son, Charles Augustus. During the protracted minority she administered the affairs of the duchy with the greatest prudence, strengthening its resources and improving its position in spite of the troubles of the Seven Years’ War. She was a patroness of art and literature, and attracted to Weimar many of the most eminent men in Germany. Wieland was appointed tutor to her son; and the names of Herder, Goethe and Schiller shed an undying lustre on her court. In 1775 she retired into private life, her son having attained his majority. In 1788 she set out on a lengthened tour through Italy, accompanied by Goethe. She died on the 10th of April 1807. A memorial of the duchess is included in Goethe’s works under the title Zum Andenken der Furstin Anna-Amalia.
See F. Bornhak, Anna Amalia Herzogin von Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Berlin. 1892).