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House, MD and Cordyceps

April 9th, 2010 No comments

I found this old facebook conversation:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=4721625661&topic=3443

Am feeling both tired and lazy today, so I’ll just quote the convo and wait for comments.

308house House, MD and Cordyceps

House, MD would have made a great Chinese doctor.

<blockquote>Philip Tan-Gatue:

Anyone seen the episode “Whatever it takes”? House actually prescribed cordyceps sinesis to a patient.

Debra Hayes:
No, I didn’t, regrettably. Could you elaborate?
Debra Hayes:
I found it…
House’s mistake almost kills the patient, because the patient tells him that he spent 40 days at a festival. House figures out that he was in Brazil eating Brazil nuts for 40 days, and has poisoning (oh, not chestnuts, but so close, and if you have a nut sensitivity anyway…) The treatment is the iodine drip that House has unhooked. Oops. It seems clear that the patient is dying! Unless they try an alternative treatment! House suggests an herbal treatment. Cordyceps Sinesis. with dimercaperol chelation can mediate bone marrow damage of radiation. In monkeys! Can it possibly work? Oh, the suspense!
Philip Tan-Gatue:
who the heck eats brazil nuts for 40 days anyhow… but even if not pathogenic in itself, that many nuts should drive your system batty.
Debra Hayes:
True! In astrnage sense, however, we could look at House using the “exotic” to treat the exotic. We know how Chinese medicine works and in many of his cases it could be used, but it was nice to see it used in this instance.
Philip Tan-Gatue:
It’s too bad that the House character is basically limited to western medicine. If his mind were open to Chinese medicine, he’d be a truly great diagnostician. He already has the propensity to link disease with environmental and occupational influences.
Debra Hayes:
Indeed, he does! That is what makes him phenomenal. Perhpas, he embodies the western ideal of using the shen to see, and that is what makes him unique.
Original convo from January 8, 2008.
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Categories: Herbal Medicine, Western Medicine Tags: , ,

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