e organisms is that they are acid-fast - they withstand decolorization with an acid-alcohol mixture after staining with carbolfuchsin or auramine-rhodamine. Mycobacteria are primarily intracellular pathogens, with slow growth rates, are obligate aerobes, and produce a granulomatous reaction in normal hosts. M. tuberculosis does not produce significant amounts of pigment in culture, having a buff-colored, smooth surface appearance, and produces niacin biochemically. These characteristics differentiate tuberculous mycobacteria from non-tuberculous mycobacteria. One morphologic characteristic of M. tuberculosis is that it forms cords or dense clusters of bacilli aligned in parallel. The biochemical background of cording is a trehalose dimycolate, but its contribution to bacterial virulence remains unknown.
Pneumonia, by contrast, is caused by any organism known to produce human infections, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and amoebae (Pneumonia, 2004). In the United States, pneumonia is the sixth most common disease leading to death, with more t
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