Health News Blog. Lots of resources and information

Pneumonia due to other germs may not respond as readily to treatment. The staphylococcus is notorious for becoming immune to antibiotics almost as fast as new ones become available.

Staphylococcal pneumonia, especially as a complication of influenza may be rapidly fatal.

Mycoplasma is a germ midway between a bacterium and a virus and can cause many respiratory infections.

Mycoplasma are not affected by penicillin but are sensitive to other antibiotics.

Bronchopneumonia usually follows infection in the bronchial tubes, and inflammation is widespread and patchy throughout both lungs. It occurs most frequently in children and in the elderly and is usually secondary to some other condition, such as measles or whooping cough in children.

In the elderly, it may develop in those weakened and bed-ridden and is often the final cause of death in the frail elderly confined to bed. Therefore, bronchopneumonia has been called the old man’s friend.

It was often called “double pneumonia” because, unlike lobar pneumonia, it involved both lungs.

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Atheroma is the condition where fatty material is laid down in the wall of an artery.

Coronary artery disease occurs when the coronary arteries which supply the heart muscle with blood are affected by this atheroma. The artery is narrowed and the smooth lining becomes irregular.

The aorta is the main artery carrying all the blood from the heart to the tissues. The coronary arteries come off the aorta just where it arises.

Coronary artery disease impairs the circulation to the heart muscle or myocardium and leads to the condition of angina. When the heart is called on to do extra work, with exertion, it requires more blood.

When the arteries are narrowed, not enough blood can flow to the muscle and it reacts to this lack of blood and therefore lack of oxygen by producing the typical chest pain.

Angina usually comes on with exertion and is relieved by rest. A coronary occlusion is when the artery is completely blocked. This may lead to the death of that portion of the heart muscle supplied by the artery — a myocardial infarct.

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