Antiques (an-tēks'), a term specifically applied to the remains of ancient art, as statues, paintings, vases, cameos, and the like, and more especially to the works of Grecian and Roman antiquity.
Antirrhinum (an-ti-rī´num) (from anti, instead of, and rhis, snout), a genus of annual or perennial plants of the nat. ord. Scrophulariaceæ, commonly known as snapdragon, on account of the peculiarity of the blossoms, which, by pressing between the finger and thumb, may be made to open and shut like a mouth. They all produce showy flowers, and are much cultivated in gardens. Many varieties of some of them, such as the great or common snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus), have been produced by gardeners. The lesser snapdragon grows in sandy soil, and is found in cornfields in the south of England and Ireland.
Antisana (a˙n-tē-sä´na˙), a volcano in the Andes of Ecuador, 35 miles S.E. by E. of Quito. Whymper, who ascended it in 1880, makes its height 19,260 feet.
Antis´cians (Gr. anti, over against, skia, a shadow), those who live under the same meridian, at the same distance N. and S. of the equator, and whose shadows at noon consequently are thrown in contrary directions.
Antiscorbu´tics, remedies against scurvy. Lemon-juice, ripe fruit, milk, salts of potash, green vegetables, potatoes, fresh meat, and raw or lightly-boiled eggs, are some of the principal foodstuffs containing antiscorbutic vitamines.
Anti-Sem´itism, hostility to the Jews (Semites), actively exhibited in severities and attacks of various kinds. The movement assumed vast proportions about 1880 and manifested itself in various countries, especially Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Roumania, and France. It may be attributed to different motives in different countries, but on the whole owed its origin not only to the fact of the Jews being a 'peculiar people' by race and religion, but also to the comparatively high position won by them in modern times in the financial and political worlds. The religious element is quite
prominent in the popular attacks on the Jew, although modern anti-Semitism is essentially social and economic. In Western Russia there was a great outburst against the Jews in 1881, in which men, women, and children were slaughtered. The Government of the Tsar, by its anti-Jewish policy, may be said to have sanctioned this murderous outbreak, which was followed by harsh laws and actual persecutions, though afterwards there was a mitigation of the severity shown towards the Jews. Yet in 1903 the world was startled by a terrible massacre of Jews at Kishinev, in Bessarabia, connived at by the authorities on the spot; and towards the end of 1905, in connection with the Russian revolutionary movement, there were dreadful massacres of Jews in Odessa, Kishinev, and other towns, the authorities being similarly involved. In Roumania, until 1919, the position of the Jews resembled what it was elsewhere in mediæval times, and was less favourable than it was even under the Turks. In Germany the movement has been worked chiefly by politicians for their own ends, though the racial and religious question has also had some influence; and among the ignorant the belief that the Jews murder Christian children for ritual purposes has been revived, as also in Austria and in Hungary. In these countries the movement has been partly political, partly social and economic, partly religious. In France anti-Semitism has been employed chiefly as a weapon by monarchists and clericals as against republicanism, and by the Socialists as against capitalism, racial antipathy having also its influence on the movements. It reached its height in 1895 at the time of the Dreyfus affair. In Britain, too, anti-Semitism has of late made itself felt.—Bibliography: A. Leroy-Beaulieu, Israel among the Nations; Bernard Lazare, L'anti-sémitisme, son histoire et ses causes.
Antisep´tic (Gr. anti, against, and sēpein, to rot), an agent which destroys the germs of putrefaction or suppuration is called an antiseptic. Many substances act thus, e.g. chlorine, iodine, hypochlorous acid, sulphurous acid, camphor, creosote, iodoform, nascent oxygen ('Sanitas'), corrosive sublimate, formaldehyde ('Formalin'), potassium permanganate ('Condy's Fluid'), carbolic acid (Lysol, Izal, Cyllin); lately aniline dyes have become prominent: of these flavine has proved the most useful addition to surgery of recent years. It was much used in the European War (1914-8).—Antiseptics are also used for purifying surgical instruments, &c., and commercially as disinfectants. When introduced by Lister into surgical practice they led to revolutionary advances in surgery. The tendency of late years has been to abandon antiseptic for aseptic (sterile) mode of technique, but during the war (1914-8) there was a general return to antiseptic methods in surgery.
Antispasmod´ic, a medicine for the cure of spasms and convulsions; such belong largely to the class of ethers, as sulphuric ether, chloric ether, nitric ether, &c.
Antisthenes (an-tis´the-nēz), a Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of Cynics, born at Athens about 444 B.C. He was first a disciple of Gorgias and then of Socrates, at whose death he was present. His philosophy was a one-sided development of the Socratic teaching. He held virtue to consist in complete self-denial and in disregard of riches, honour, or pleasure of every kind. He himself lived as a beggar. He died in Athens at an advanced age.