The term antibiotic was coined by
- (a)Davie and Ratnoff
- (b)Edward O. Wilson
- (c)M. Pearl
- (d)Selman Waksman
Correct — D, Selman Waksman.
Selman Waksman, a soil microbiologist at Rutgers University, gave the word its modern meaning. He and his co-workers first used 'antibiotic' in journal articles in 1942, for a substance produced by a microorganism that checks the growth of other microorganisms even in high dilution.
The idea to carry away: the man who named antibiotics also found streptomycin. His laboratory isolated it in 1943 from the soil actinomycete Streptomyces griseus. It became the first drug effective against tuberculosis, and Waksman received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it.
Keep the older word apart. The French bacteriologist Paul Vuillemin had introduced 'antibiosis' in 1889 for one organism acting against another. Vuillemin's word named the phenomenon; Waksman's named the substance.
- (a)Davie and Ratnoff — Earl Davie and Oscar Ratnoff worked on how blood clots, not on microbes. In 1964 they proposed the waterfall sequence of blood coagulation, in which clotting factors activate one another in a chain that ends in fibrin. Their names belong to a question on clotting; the naming of antibiotics is Waksman's.
- (b)Edward O. Wilson — E. O. Wilson was a Harvard biologist who studied ants and, with Robert MacArthur, built the theory of island biogeography. His name fits a question on sociobiology, the word his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis made famous, or on biophilia, the title of his 1984 book.
He also edited the 1988 volume BioDiversity, which spread a word that Walter G. Rosen had coined while planning the 1986 National Forum on BioDiversity. His field is ecology and animal behaviour; the antibiotic coinage is Waksman's.
- (c)M. Pearl — This name offers no field to hang the word on. The documented record of the coinage, from the first use in 1942 journal articles to Waksman's own 1947 paper in Mycologia, 'What is an antibiotic or an antibiotic substance?', carries Waksman's name. Treat the option as a filler and move on.
A coined term carries three checkable things: the coiner, the year, and the first definition. 'Antibiotic' is Waksman's word from 1942: a substance made by a microorganism that inhibits or destroys other microorganisms even in high dilution.
That definition excludes synthetic drugs. In Waksman's usage, Ehrlich's arsenical salvarsan and Domagk's sulphonamide prontosil were chemotherapeutic agents, not antibiotics, while penicillin and streptomycin, the products of a mould and a soil actinomycete, were.
Waksman's coinage sits at the start of the antibiotic era. Fleming had noticed penicillin's effect in 1928, Florey and Chain made it a usable drug in the early 1940s, and Waksman's systematic screening of soil microbes at Rutgers produced actinomycin, streptothricin, streptomycin and neomycin within the 1940s.
Naming the class mattered because it fixed what was being searched for: microbial products with selective toxicity. Everyday usage has since widened the word to cover synthetic antibacterials, but the coinage remains Waksman's.
- Selman Waksman and his co-workers first used the word 'antibiotic' in journal articles in 1942.
- Waksman's definition: a substance produced by a microorganism that is antagonistic to the growth of other microorganisms in high dilution.
- Streptomycin was isolated in Waksman's Rutgers laboratory in 1943 by his doctoral student Albert Schatz, from Streptomyces griseus.
- Streptomycin was the first drug effective against tuberculosis; Waksman received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for its discovery.
- Paul Vuillemin introduced the older term 'antibiosis' in 1889 for the antagonism of one organism towards another.
- Waksman's 1947 paper in Mycologia is titled 'What is an antibiotic or an antibiotic substance?'.
- Earl Davie and Oscar Ratnoff proposed the waterfall sequence of blood coagulation in 1964.
- Walter G. Rosen coined 'biodiversity' in 1985; E. O. Wilson edited the 1988 proceedings volume BioDiversity that popularised it.
Waksman is the keyed name; Davie and Ratnoff belong to blood clotting and Wilson to ecology.
- The word 'antibiotic' and the drug penicillin have different fathers: Fleming discovered penicillin, Waksman named the class. Answering Fleming to a coinage question loses the mark.
- 'Antibiosis' (Vuillemin, 1889) predates 'antibiotic' (Waksman, 1942); a stem about the phenomenon and a stem about the substance have different answers.
- E. O. Wilson popularised 'biodiversity' as editor of the 1988 volume, but the coiner is Walter G. Rosen. Keep populariser and coiner apart; Waksman is the coiner of 'antibiotic'.
- Waksman's own definition restricts antibiotics to microbial products; a stem that lists sulphonamides or salvarsan as 'antibiotics' is using the loose modern sense, not his.
The stem names a term and asks for its coiner, with three names from unrelated corners of biology as the other options. The elimination is by field: two coagulation researchers and an ant ecologist sit far from microbial chemistry, which leaves the microbiologist.
A variant reverses the direction: it names Waksman and asks what he discovered (streptomycin) or which prize he received (the 1952 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine). A third form pairs terms with coiners in a match-the-columns table.
UKPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q972025Same device, the coiner of a biology term, with a term from ecology rather than microbiology. Its answer is Walter G. Rosen for 'biodiversity'; E. O. Wilson, a distractor on this paper, is the man who popularised Rosen's word, so the two questions share a hazard as well as a form.
UKPSC_2016_PRE_PaperI_Q512016Same 'who coined the term' form applied to economics: Jim O'Neill's 2001 coinage (BRIC, before South Africa joined). Different subject entirely; what carries over is the elimination method of matching each name's field to the term's field.
MPPSC_2023_PRE_PaperI_Q642023Same form in a history setting: Choudhry Rahmat Ali's 1933 pamphlet coined 'Pakistan'. Different exam, different subject; the shared lesson is that a coinage question has one documented coiner and the other names are drawn from elsewhere.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Selman Waksman received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of which antibiotic?
- (a)Penicillin
- (b)Streptomycin
- (c)Chloramphenicol
- (d)Tetracycline
Answerb — Streptomycin, isolated in Waksman's laboratory in 1943 from Streptomyces griseus and the first drug effective against tuberculosis. Penicillin's Nobel went to Fleming, Florey and Chain in 1945. Chloramphenicol and the tetracyclines were found later in the 1940s by other groups and are not tied to Waksman. - practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following pairs of term and coiner is correctly matched?
- (a)Antibiotic — Alexander Fleming
- (b)Biodiversity — Edward O. Wilson
- (c)Ecosystem — A. G. Tansley
- (d)Antibiosis — Selman Waksman
Answerc — Arthur Tansley introduced 'ecosystem' in 1935. Fleming discovered penicillin, but the word 'antibiotic' is Waksman's (1942). 'Biodiversity' was coined by Walter G. Rosen; Wilson popularised it as editor of the 1988 volume. 'Antibiosis' is Vuillemin's older term (1889), not Waksman's. - practice — not a real PYQ
Waksman's original definition of an antibiotic required the substance to be
- (a)produced by a microorganism
- (b)synthesised in the laboratory
- (c)effective against viruses
- (d)derived from a plant
Answera — Waksman's 1942 usage covered substances produced by microorganisms that inhibit other microorganisms in high dilution. Laboratory synthesis (b) describes sulphonamides and salvarsan, which he classed as chemotherapeutic agents rather than antibiotics.Antibiotics act on bacteria, not on viruses (c). Plant compounds such as quinine (d) fall outside a microbial-product definition.