* You might think that the “difficile” part of the bacteria’s name came about because it makes life so difficult for those who have it. But that’s not the case. If it were, other nasty bacteria should follow suit, with specific epithets (not swear words, in this case, but the second “name” of a species in binomial nomenclature system) like “miserabile” or “payamillionbuckstogetridofthiswretchedthing” becoming standard. C. difficile actually comes by its name because when it was first identified in 1935, it was hard to isolate, and it grew slowly in culture. In other words, it was difficult.