What is gram-positive bacillus?

Just a quick science post for all those who might be interested...

"Gram-positive bacillus" is more of a description than a diagnosis. "gram-positive" means the bacteria show up when stained with "gram stain"--a purple stain used to make bacteria show up better on microscope slides. "Bacillus" is a description of the shape of the bacteria. Bacilli are "rod-shaped" bacteria.

Other than that, there is a list as long as your arm of species of gram-positive bacilli. They are mostly harmless--mostly.

Gram-positive bacteria have weaker cell walls than the gram negative kind (the weaker cell wall happens also to absorb the stain--neat trick, huh?), and so are not usually the dangerous kind. "Gram-negative" bacteria tend to be tougher, and those are usually the ones that are human pathogens.

Only two Bacillus species are considered medically significant: B. anthracis, which causes anthrax, and B. cereus, which causes a foodborne illness similar to that of Staphylococcus. If any of you docs out there know of any other bacillus baddies, please report them immediately to Wiki. ;-)

Now I'm all the way up here in Philly, so I don't know first hand, but I would venture to guess that we're talking about B. cereus in this case. I seriously doubt that the folks on Gracie's medical team would be behaving in such a cautiously lackadaisical way if she had anthrax...