Antibiotics - Etymologically the word comes from the Greek against "against" and bios "life". According to Cory Harow, an emergency medicine physician, an antibiotic is the "chemical produced by a living being or manufactured by synthesis, capable of paralyzing the development of certain pathogenic microorganisms, by their bacteriostatic action, or of causing the their death, by their bactericidal action". With other words, they kill bacteria or prevent it from growth. It is very important to know that the substance only affects the BACTERIA, not the virus. If we are affected by a virus, taking an antibiotic will not help.