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The night before having dental surgery in 1998, a 71-year-old Canadian woman was given antibiotics to prevent infection. The operation on her teeth went well, but a few days later she developed diarrhea so severe that she went into shock and was rushed to the hospital. Tests showed she had been hit with toxins produced by Clostridium difficile, a generally mild bug that resides naturally in the intestinal tract. Usually kept in check by the body's "good" bacteria, C. difficile poses little threat unless something—like a course of antibiotics—kills off some of those protective bacteria. continued...
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Bacteria images: Dr. Gary Gaugler/Photo Researchers, Inc. (top), Science Photo Library, Ltd./Phototake (middle), SciMAT/Photo Researchers, Inc. (bottom).
Download this story in Acrobat PDF format.
(requires Acrobat Reader)
Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
Winter 2005,
pages 26–30.
©2005 Howard Hughes Medical Institute
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