I'm reading about pneumonia online and have found there's a lot about it that is surprising, including the many types of pneumonia. Here's a section that gets into diagnosis that includes a reference to 'tie-dying':

"The bacterial kingdom is divided into those that dye purple called Gram positive, and those that dye pink, called Gram negative. (Pneumococcal is Gram positive and nursing home pneumonia is Gram negative.)

The stain we use was invented in 1878 by a young Dane named Hans Christian Gram. It is similar to tie-dying. The first dye is crystal violet and is fixed or mordanted in Gram positive bacteria by iodine. (In tie-dying the mordant is alum.)

The dye washed out of the Gram negative bacteria with alcohol and a pick counter stain, safranin, is added to color them so they can be easily seen.

Gram positive bacteria are usually sensitive to penicillin; gram negative bacteria are not. The latter require complex and new antibiotics that are often difficult to choose."

Well, I find all that interesting, particularly the use of the words tie-dye and mordant.

But toward the end of the article there is this curious statement regarding sleeping pills, of all things, as increasing the likelihood of contraction of pneumonia, which puzzles the heck out of me. Any comment wwh or wof'?

"Once you get into a nursing home, your chances of having these bacteria in your throat rise to 12 percent, and in a skilled nursing home to 37 percent. In the acute care hospital, 60 percent of the elderly carry these potentially dangerous bacteria in their throat. When this happens, a heavy dose of sleeping pills or a stroke allows you to breathe these potentially deadly organisms into your lungs."


http://www.vh.org/adult/patient/internalmedicine/aba30/1992/pneumoniadiagnosis.html

*Let me know whether the link is too long. If it is, I'll just get rid of it.