Friday, June 17, 2005

Mark

Former German monetary unit. In the 19th century the mark was a common small coin in the German states, but its value varied between states. In 1873, soon after the creation of the German empire, the gold mark, equal to 100 pfennigs, was adopted as the standard of value and the money of account for the empire. In 1948 the deutsche mark (DM; “German mark”) was introduced in West Germany, and in 1990 it

Monday, June 13, 2005

Saxhorn

Any of a family of brass wind instruments patented by the Belgian instrument-maker Antoine-Joseph Sax, known as Adolphe Sax, in Paris in 1845. Saxhorns, one of many 19th-century developments from the valved bugle, provided military bands with a homogeneous series of valved brass in place of the miscellany of valved instruments that had come into use since 1825 (such as flügelhorns,

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Eimeria

Genus of parasitic protozoans of the spore-producing phylum Apicomplexa (previously Sporozoa). Eimeria, which causes coccidiosis in livestock and wild animals, infects mainly the cells of the digestive tract, although it also attacks cells of the liver and the bile duct. Symptoms of infection are diarrhea, weight loss, and general weakness. Eimeria is characterized