Fundamentals Of Microbiology 10th Edition by Jeffrey Pommerville

Exercise 10

In February 1980, a patient was admitted to a Texas hospital complaining of fever, headache, and chills. He also had greatly enlarged lymph nodes in the left armpit. A sample of blood was taken and Gram stained, whereupon gram-positive diplococci were observed. The patient was treated with cefoxitin, a drug for gram-positive organisms, but soon thereafter he died. On autopsy, Yersinia pestis was found in his blood and tissues. Why was this organism mistakenly thought to be diplococci, and what error was made in the laboratory Why were the symptoms of plague missed