Please, I’m very confused. Context is medical.
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It is a way of separating bacteria in to two groups based on certain properties, primarily related to the type of cell wall they have. The term comes from a technique called Gram staining, i.e. applying certain chemicals that will change the color of the bacteria. Gram negative bacteria will show up as pink/red while gram positive bacteria will show up as purple/indigo. This can be done very quickly and can help doctors narrow down the type of infection a person might have. Identification of the specific type of bacteria using cell cultures takes longer, so using Gram staining you can start treatment based on the probable type of bacteria using the negative/positive result and other clues (such as bacteria shape, patient symptoms, etc.).
The term Gram comes from the name of the scientist, Hans Christian Gram, who first came up with the technique in the late 1800’s and is not related to the physical property for mass, the gram.
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