Category: D

Desire, conscious or unconscious, for oneself or another to die. Weakness, lack of strength.  

Drug used to treat leprosy and certain skin disorders. An antibiotic used to treat leprosy. Dapsone (Avlosulfon) is an antibiotic that is effective against the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, which causes leprosy. Dapsone is also used to treat dermatitis herpetiformis (a skin disease), pemphigus, malaria, and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome)-related pneumonia. A drug used to treat…

Condition in which pus is present in the tear duct or gland.  

Literally ‘difficult seeding’; bacteriologically the term implies cultivation which is slow and difficult, and it is used especially of some mycobacteria.  

Synthetic liquid medium for the cultivation of tubercle bacilli. Two varieties are used: (1) with Tween 80, for dispersed growth of acid- fast bacilli; (2) with oleic acid, to aid the production of ‘cords’ of virulent growing bacteria.  

Pasteur pipettes designed to deliver drops of designated size (25/cm³, 50/cm³, etc) in serology tests, plate counts and other methods. The drop size is determined by the external diameter of the pipette tip, and appropriate sizes are obtained by the use of a Starrett Standard Wire Gauge (0.95 mm) hole of the gauge and cut…

Strains of known or suspected C. diphtheriae are tested for virulence by their intramuscular injection into 2 guinea-pigs, one of which is first immunized with diphtheria antitoxin. If the strain is virulent, the non-immunized animal will die within 3 days.  

Bacteriological nutrient broths (and agars prepared from them) in which the digested protein is not added as peptone, but is derived from the action of enzymes such as trypsin digesting partially cooked meat in an alkaline state at 37°C. In Hartley’s broth the digestant is an alcoholic extract of porcine pancreas (Cole and Onslow’s pancreatic…

Culture medium allowing easy visualization of colonial differences between two types of bacteria—e.g., the red colonies of lactose- fermenting conforms on MacConkey agar as opposed to the colourless colonies of S. typhi  

Tests of the ability of bacteria to break down the carboxyl groups of amino acids, the different decarboxylases being characteristic in a given species (especially among the enterobacteria).