Overheard on the internet: 

Q: Fumagilin b is an antibiotic, right? 

A: NO it is not. The best term to describe, a fungicide. Nosema are spores, not a bacteria.


My answer: I believe you are splitting hairs. The name should refer to what it is used for, and if I use alcohol to kill bacteria, it is an antibiotic. If I drink it, it becomes a recreational drug. Anyway, the following is more pertinent.

> Since the introduction of antibiotics, their use in intestinal amebiasis has been suggested by various workers in this field. Penicillin was used by Hargreaves (1945) in England and by Halawani et at. (1950) in Egypt, who found it effective in the treatment of several cases of severe amebic dysentery. Oxytetracycline (Terramycin) and Chlortetracycline (Aureomycin) were tried ...

> In 1949 a new antibiotic, fumagillin, was isolated from an aspergillus culture by Hanson and Eble (1949). In America, it was found that its activity on fungi, bacteria and viruses is very small, but it was found active against the ameba. 
GAMAL NOR EL-DIN. 1956. THE USE OF FUMAGILLIN IN THE TREATMENT OF AMEBIASIS. Research Institute for Tropical Disease, Cairo, Egypt 

Actually, the term antibiotic has much broader use now, as seen by this definition:

> a medicine that inhibits the growth of or destroys microorganisms. from anti- + Greek bi_tikos 'fit for life' (from bios 'life' ).

Bottom line: Any agent that is used to kill microorganisms, such as essential oils, heat, radiation, bleach, etc. would be considered an antibiotic by this definition. 

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