diphtheroidadj.n.

1859 Lancet 15 Jan. 51/1 It was a case only of diphtheroid exudation, occurring at the close of a longstanding disease of the supra-renal capsules.

1869 J. R. Cormack tr. A. Trousseau Lect. Clin. Med. II. 78 In recent times a proper custom has arisen of designating by the terms rheumatoid pains and diphtheroid exudations, the pains and exudations which resemble rheumatic pains and diphtheritic exudations... We may designate as diphtheroid the pultaceous exudations which proceed from certain inflammatory affections of the mucous membranes of the mouth and genital organs.

1888 St. Louis Courier Med. 19 132 We were restrained from calling them true diphtheria, but usually designated them as pseudo-diphtheria, or diphtheroid sore throat.

1897 Jrnl. Royal Microsc. Soc. 68 This absence of virulence raised the question whether the bacillus was that of true diphtheria, pseudodiphtheria, or a diphtheroid organism.

1934 Amer. Jrnl. Surg. 23 576/2 The most common diphtheroid bacillus is the B. hoffmanni which is also known as the pseudo-diphtheritic bacillus.

1986 J. F. Gracey Meat Hygiene (ed. 8) xv. 331/1 Listeriosis is caused by Listeria monocytogenes, a small, motile, Gram-positive, non-sporing, diphtheroid rod which has several strains.

2008 Internat. Jrnl. Infectious Dis. 12 673/2 Penicillin and vancomycin have been used for the treatment of diphtheroid endocarditis.

1861 Sixth Ann. Rep. Births, Marriages & Deaths City of Providence 39 This influence has produced, especially during the present winter, a great number of cases of disease of the throat, to which the name of ‘diphtheroid’ has been given.

1887 H. Z. Gill tr. A. Sanné Treat. Diphtheria 301 Hospital gangrene might be, in some cases, confounded with diphtheria of the skin, for this error has been to a certain degree sanctioned by the improper name of diphtheritis of wounds given by Robert to hospital gangrene, and by the classification of Boussuge, who classes this affection among the diphtheroids.

1895 Amer. Practitioner & News 20 13 All other cases of pseudomembranous or exudative inflammations of the mucous membranes, in which the Loeffler bacilli are positively absent, are classed to-day as ‘pseudo or false diphtherias’, or, as Heubner proposes, as ‘diphtheroids’.

1904 Med. News 16 July 121/2 Behring has called attention to a group of clinical cases which he terms diphtheroids; these differ from true diphtheria in the clinical picture which they represent, but are nevertheless due to infection with the diphtheria bacillus.

1905 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 28 Oct. 1105/2 The organisms detected microscopically were further differentiated into Klebs-Loeffler bacilli, Hoffmann's bacilli, and diphtheroids (that is, some one or other of the remaining members of the group).

1949 H. W. Florey et al. Antibiotics I. v. 221 Diphtheroids, streptococci, and L. acidophilus were completely inhibited by that concentration.

1988 Q. N. Myrvik & R. S. Weiser Fund. Med. Bacteriol. & Mycol. (ed. 2) xv. 233 Certain nonpathogenic corynebacteria (often referred to as ‘diphtheroids’) are commonly found in the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract.

2003 Transplant Infectious Dis. 5 195 Oerskovia species were, until recently, only rarely associated with human disease. This gram-positive bacillus can be easily misidentified as a diphtheroid, a common contaminant in blood cultures.