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In nosocomial (hospital-acquired) pneumonia and the pneumonias of the immunocompromised, diagnosis can be difficult, and CT scanning of the lungs can be required to differentiate possible causes (e.g. pulmonary embolism). CT scanning is also used when the symptoms and physical examination point at possible different causes for the complaints (e.g. vasculitis, sarcoidosis, lung cancer). Classification There are several different classification schemes: microbiological, radiological, age-related, anatomical, point of acquiring infection. The main classification used in medical journals is that between the point of infection: community-acquired and hospital-acquired. Furthermore, infections in the immunocompromised, as well as aspiration pneumonia, are usually treated as separate disease entities as they have other causal agents, as well as a different clinical course. Phthisis is a Greek term for consumption. Around 460 BC, Hippocrates identified phthisis as the most widespread disease of the times which was almost always fatal. Due to the variety of its symptoms, TB was not identified as a unified disease until the 1820s and was not named tuberculosis until 1839 by J.L. Schoenlein. Some forms of the disease were probably known to the ancient Greeks, if not before, as the origins of the disease are in the first domestication of cattle (which also gave humanity viral poxes). First TB sanatorium opened in 1859 in Poland; later, in 1885 in the United States. The bacillus-causing tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was described on March 24, 1882 by Robert Koch. He received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for this discovery in 1905. Click on following items to see more information: Alcaligenes, Antibiotic, Antibiotic, Antibacterial, Bacilli, Bacillus subtilis, Bacterium, Bacterial, Phages, Bacteroides, C. botulinum, C. albicans, Cell suspension, Clostridium, Culture media, E. coli, E. coli, E. coli, E. coli, E. coli, Enterobacter, Fermentation, Yeast, Gram positive, Haemophilus, Listeria, Bacterial, Bacterial, Bacterium, Neisseria, Pichia, P. aeruginosa, Pseudomonas putida, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Salmonella typhimurium, Serratia, S. aureus, Streptococcus, Streptococcus, Thermophilic, Yeast The first indications of problems with the influenza vaccine produced by Chiron Corporation in 2004 involved S. marcescens contamination. Shigella are Gram-negative, nonmotile, nonsporeforming rod-shaped bacteria. They are pathogens of humans and other primates, causing shigellosis. Depending on age and condition of the host, as few as 10 cells depending on age and condition of host can be enough to cause an infection. The disease is caused when virulent Shigella organisms attach to, and penetrate, epithelial cells of the intestinal mucosa. After invasion, they multiply intracellularly, and spread to contiguous epitheleal cells resulting in tissue destruction. Some strains produce enterotoxin and Shiga toxin (very much like the verotoxin of E. coli O157:H7). Ciliates are covered in part or entirely with what look like little bristles called cilia (the Latin word for eyelash.) The cilia are used for locomotion, and to snag bacteria, algae and other food and direct it into the ciliate’s mouth-like opening. Ciliates include both grazers that dine on algae and bacterial cells and predators that attack and gulp down other protozoa. Grazers include Paramecium and Vorticella. An example of a predatory ciliate is Didinium. Ciliates are among the most complex of all single-celled creatures, with a diverse array of structures and organelles that perform a range of activities, from finding and catching food, digesting it, excreting it, moving about, respiring, sensing environmental conditions, and balancing the fluids inside their cells.
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