Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Destructive to, or inimical to the development of micro-organisms: as, antimicrobic sera.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
antimicrobial - noun Any
antimicrobial agent
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective capable of destroying or inhibiting the growth of disease-causing microorganisms
- noun an agent (as heat or radiation or a chemical) that destroys microorganisms that might carry disease
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Bordet's early studies showed that antimicrobic sera include two active substances, one existing before immunization, known as alexine, and the other a specific antibody created by vaccination: he developed a method of diagnosing microbes by sera.
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In 1898, he discovered haemolytic sera and showed that the mechanism of their action on foreign blood is similar to that by which an antimicrobic serum acts on microbes and, furthermore, that the reactions of the sera are colloidal in nature.
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The development of all antagonistic substances which confer the special character on antimicrobic sera, as well as antitoxins, may be expressed as the formation of bodies with specific combining affinity for the organic substance introduced into the system -- toxin, bacterium, red corpuscle, &c., as the case may be.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" Various
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