Are antibiotics different from antitoxins?
Doctors and druggists use these fine sounding words. Antibiotics and antitoxins are both medicines. But they work in different ways. An antibiotic may be able to cure a number of different diseases. Each antitoxin can help the body to solve only one problem. Both of these big words begin with anti, which means against. Antibiotics and antitoxins are both against sickness which harms the body. The antibiotics destroy the germs which attack the body. Sometimes the body is cured by poison from a snake bite. Certain germs also make poisons which damage the body. The word toxin means poison, and the antitoxins are medicines which work to make poisons harmless to the body. Many illnesses are caused by bacteria which are midget members of the plant world. These little germs also have their enemies. Sometimes they are attacked and destroyed by tiny molds. And, strange to say, these molds are also midget members of the plant world. The molds give off chemicals called antibiotics. We use these a
