An´klam, a town in Prussia, province of Pomerania, 47 miles north-west of Stettin, on the River Peene, which is here navigable. Shipbuilding, woollen and cotton manufactures, soap-boiling, tanning, &c., are carried on. Pop. 15,280.
Anko´bar, or Anko´ber, a town in Abyssinia, former capital of Shoa, on a steep conical hill 8200 feet high. Pop. 2000.
Ankylo´sis, or Anchylo´sis, stiffness of the joints caused by a more or less complete coalescence of the bones through ossification, often the result of inflammation or injury. False ankylosis is stiffness of a joint when the disease is not in the joint itself, but in the tendinous and muscular parts by which it is surrounded.
Ankylostomi´asis, a 'worm disease' to which miners are subject in some localities, is caused by vast numbers of small parasitic worms (Ankylostoma or Anchylostoma duodenale) in the duodenum or upper portions of the intestinal canal. Deriving their sustenance from the system, these worms produce anæmia or bloodlessness (that is, deficiency of the red corpuscles of the blood), the sufferers being pallid, feeble, short-breathed, liable to faint, and unequal to any laborious work, and death may result if a cure is not effected. Fortunately the disease is not difficult to cure if the remedies are applied—remedies such as will expel the worms from the intestine. The disease is said to be common in tropical and sub-tropical countries all over the world. In Europe it was perhaps first observed in 1879 in the case of workmen engaged in excavating the St. Gothard tunnel. Since 1896 it has been well known in some of the German mines; and in 1903 it was detected among the miners engaged in the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall. The eggs of the worms are carried from the body with the fæces; under favourable circumstances they develop into larvæ, which may gain entrance again into the human body by the mouth (perhaps in drinking-water), to attain full development in the intestine. Careful sanitary arrangements are a preventive of the disease, which is also known as 'miner's worm', 'miner's anæmia', &c.
Ann, or Annat, in Scottish law, the half-year's stipend of a living, after the death of the clergyman, payable to his family or next of kin. The right to the ann is not vested in the clergyman himself, but in his representatives; and, accordingly, it can neither be disposed of by him nor attached for his debts.
Anna, an Anglo-Indian money of account, the sixteenth part of a rupee, and of the value of one penny; it is divided into four pice.
An´naberg, a town in Saxony, 47 miles south-west of Dresden. Mining (for silver, cobalt, iron, &c.) is carried on, and there are manufactures of lace, ribbons, fringes, buttons, &c. Pop. 17,025.
Anna Comne´na, daughter of Alexius I, Comnenus, Byzantine emperor. She was born 1083, and died 1148. After her father's death she endeavoured to secure the succession for her husband, Nicephorus Briennius, but was baffled by his want of energy and ambition. She wrote (in Greek) a life of her father Alexius (The Alexiad, a work in fifteen books). She is a character in Sir Walter Scott's Count Robert of Paris.
Anna Ivanov´na, Empress of Russia, born in 1693, the daughter of Ivan, the elder half-brother of Peter the Great. She was married in 1710 to the Duke of Courland, in the following year was left a widow, and in 1730 ascended the throne of the tsars on the condition proposed by the senate, that she would limit the absolute power of the tsars, and do nothing without the advice of the council composed of the leading members of the Russian aristocracy. But no sooner had she ascended the throne than she declared her promise null, and proclaimed herself autocrat of all the Russias. She chose as her favourite Ernest John von Biren or Biron, who was soon all-powerful in Russia, and ruled with great severity. Several of the leading nobles were executed, and many thousand men exiled to Siberia. In 1737 Anna forced the Courlanders to choose Biren as their duke, and nominated him at her death regent of the empire during the minority of Prince Ivan (of Brunswick). Anna died in 1740. See Biren.
An´nals, a history of events in chronological order, each event being recorded under the year in which it occurred. The name is derived from the first annual records of the Romans, which were called annāles pontificum or annāles maxĭmi, drawn up by the pontifex maximus (chief pontiff). The practice of keeping such annals was afterwards adopted also by various private individuals, as by Fabius Pictor, Calpurnius Piso, and others. The name hence came to be applied in later times to historical works in which the matter was treated with special reference to chronological arrangement, as to the Annals of Tacitus.