Abstract
In 1956 Blakiston’s Gould Medical Dictionary, 3rd Edition defined opportunistic thus: ‘In bacteriology: an organism incapable of inducing disease in a healthy host, but able to produce infections in a less resistant or injured host…’. By 1981 Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 26th Edition had softened the rigid ‘incapable’ to ‘does not ordinarily cause’: ‘denoting a micro-organism which does not ordinarily cause disease but which under certain circumstances (e.g. impaired immune responses), becomes pathogenic’.
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Moore-Smith, B. (1986). Opportunistic Infections. In: Denham, M.J. (eds) Infections in the Elderly. Modern Geriatrics Series, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4135-9_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4135-9_11
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