If you want to be disturbed about something, be disturbed about the view that females must have a child to feel complete or successful.

And I think it is kind of humorous that the character believes it is House who has issues when she’s the one without a relationship all this time, yet she supposedly has none of the mental or control issues, which she believes House to have.

I’m just relieved some of the endless and heavy handed psychoanalyzing of every character by every other character has been toned down. So much so that if they want to pretend Cameron is acting out of character, despite her past actions, I’m almost willing to forgive and forget because I don’t want it explored.

On the subject of House being a genius – I think the writers have said somewhere that House is modeled on another fictional genius – Sherlock Holmes.

Of course Sherlock Holmes took cocaine, played the violin and just sat in a chair when he had no interesting cases – but he also carried out research into topics such as identifying cigar ash, identifying the soils of different parts of England, coal tar derivatives etc. AND published the results in numerous monographs. Conan Doyle mentions these things to explain how Holmes has the edge on the police (in addition to being a genius!).

While House could be reading the literature, publishing, etc. off camera it is a little disappointing that they never seem to show him doing it. Have they ever shown him leafing through a journal or book when thinking about a tough case (or at least looking at it on the web like people do nowadays)?

In spite of all that I am prepared to accept the show’s portrayal of House as a genius – even if it is the opposite of the genius people that @Kerrie works with.

I also recall an episode where House remembers a low caste Japanese doctor called in to diagnose him when everyone else is stumped. He said something like “they kept him because he was always right”.

I think this is the core of House – he has to keep on being right because otherwise he will not have a reason to exist (which is the same as saying that people will not have a reason to tolerate him). He pushes the limit of what people will tolerate just to find out what those limits are.

Also, Chase seemed to take the opposite position in relation to the one he previously had. He admitted looking around every once in a while because he’s “a guy”. Assuming that “look around” means that he feels tempted to break his commitment to monogamous relationship, one could wonder whether he has had a change of heart too or does he just fall in love with all those pretty girls he sees around?

The hygiene hypothesis is a legitimate and controversial scientific theory concerning the rise in asthma and allergy rates in industrialized nations. Some researchers link it to autoimmune diseases as well.
Helminthic therapy — treatment of disease using intentional infestation of parasitic worms — is being tested in a variety of diseases, including Crohn’s

First off I’m no doctor, I’m actually a sarcoïdosis patient, as well as a fan of this show (disregarding the occasional ridiculousness of it).

But now my questions about the remarks.

Is it a commonly accepted notion that diseases like Crohn’s and Sarcoidosis should still be called autoimmune? I was under the impression they let go of that label generally speaking because the exact cause is not clear?

If my previous assumption is true then treating with parasites for an unknown cause would be something like what the House team sometimes does in the show, assuming something, not testing it but treating it anyway. Isn’t the parasite treatment therefore based a bit too much on assumptions about cleanliness as a cause?

As for the use of worms to treat Crohn’s patients, that’s so far only being tested in the US. My doctor had only read about it, and he said that there are no conclusions about their effectiveness, thus far.

And from what I’ve read, the hygiene hypothesis as so far no solid data or evidence to back it up.

Why stop with doctors? Chase didn’t just ‘not treat’ the guy, he murdered him. Maybe you don’t see a difference in the two. That’s fine, but then you’re a hypocrite- else you’d be out there killing dictators. Or is it just only morally justified when it’s easy and you won’t get caught? Nice ethical position.

I’m pretty sure that the patient’s helminth was Acaris, not Strongyloides. Besides both being wormy gross things, there’s not much similarity.

Strongyloides is a microscopic roundworm that crawls into your body right through the skin. It is capable of auto-infection, constantly going from bowel to blood to lungs to oropharanx to bowel. It’s actually decently common in the US, so far as worms are common here.

Ascaris is a nematode visible to the naked eye. It’s spread fecal-oral, is common to tropical climates, and has a predilection for the biliary tree. This episode’s image of worms sticking out of the ampulla of vater is a classic picture of Ascaris infection.

I took a glance in the literature, and could only find one case report of biliary obstruction from Strongyloides, and it was mostly due to papillary stenosis in reaction to the worms, not mechanical blockage as depicted in the show.

God, I’m a geek. Cheesy medical dramas have got to be my top means of procrastination….

Also, great reviews, Scott. A hearty ‘thanks’ from a long-suffering med student.