Tag: Medicine

Jan and Dean

LUKE: I know a little about cars, that was all gibberish.

KIRK: Oh, well, would you mind not telling people about this? I’ve cultivated a reputation as sort of a car aficionado and in reality, all I have is a Jan and Dean record.

Jan and Dean, rock duo consisting of William Jan Berry (1941-2004) and Dean Torrence (born 1940). In the early 1960s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music styles popularised by the Beach Boys. Their song “Surf City” (1963) was the first surf song to reach #1. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Several of their songs are about cars, including “Drag City” (1963), “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” (1964), and “Dead Man’s Curve” (1964).

In 1966, Berry had a serious car accident on Dead Man’s Curve in Beverley Hills, two years after writing a song about it. He was in a coma for two months, and had to recover from brain damage and partial paralysis. He returned to the studio in 1967, almost a year to the day since his accident.

Bleeding Bowl

MICHEL: An eighteenth century bleeding bowl … When doctors bled patients, the blood had to go somewhere, no?

Michel refers to bloodletting, taking blood from a patient in order to prevent or cure illness. It is said to have been the most common medical treatment performed from antiquity until the late 19th century, for more than 2000 years. The main reason for its long-lived popularity is that it was very affordable, and almost anyone could perform it. Bloodletting is almost never used in modern medicine, and in the past, was almost overwhelmingly harmful to the patient.

A bleeding bowl is simply the bowl used to collect the blood during bloodletting, and this is what Michel bought at the auction. Notice in the picture that there is crescent piece missing from the bowl, to give the physician something to hold onto.

Cameos, Cod liver oil

EMILY: And what is wrong with that name [Society Matron’s League], Lorelai?

LORELAI: Nothing, it just sounds so serious. Brings to mind a room full of old ladies wearing black dresses and cameos and pushing spoonfuls of cod liver oil on the kids.

A cameo [pictured] refers to a piece of jewellery, usually a brooch, featuring a raised relief image, ususally of a face in classical style, against a contrasting background. They were very popular in the 19th century.

Cod liver oil is a dietary supplement made from the liver of cod fish. Like other fish oils, it contains omega-3 fatty acids, and the vitamins A and D. Historically, it was given to children because Vitamin D helps to prevent rickets.

Oddly, Lorelai does not say that she is smirking at the name of the Society Matron’s League because she knows of it from I Love Lucy, one of her favourite TV shows!

7 Up, Salad Water

RORY: Oh, a girl told me once that if your scalp is hurting from bleach, drink a 7 Up. It’s something to do with the bubbles.

LANE: The Kim household does not have soft drinks.

RORY: Well, what do you got?

LANE: Something called Salad Water imported from Korea. Believe me, it’s nothing like 7 Up.

7 Up, a lemon-lime flavoured soft drink owned by Dr Pepper, and distributed by Pepsi. It was created by Charles Leiper Grigg in St Louis in 1929, two weeks before the Wall Street stock market crash of that year. Originally called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, it contained lithium citrate, a mood stabiliser used to treat manic states and bipolar disorder. It became 7 Up in 1936, and nobody really knows why that name was chosen – some say that it refers to the seven original ingredients, some that it’s a coded reference to lithium, which has an atomic mass around 7.

7 Up won’t do anything to stop your scalp hurting after bleach (and if it’s the bubbles, wouldn’t any soft drink do the same thing?), but I’ve seen it recommended for stomach ache and the common cold, so there seems to be a lot of belief in it as a folk remedy. I suspect Rory is saying anything to distract Lane, and possibly hoping for a placebo effect.

Salad Water, or Water Salad [pictured], is water flavoured with green salad, produced by Coca-Cola in Japan. I’m not sure why the Kims have imported it from Korea when it’s a Japanese product – perhaps the Korean import-export company imports it from Japan, then exports it to the US.

Jack and Jennifer

DARREN: Jack’s pre-med at Princeton and Jennifer is bound for Harvard, like you Rory.

Jack is in a pre-medical program, an educational track that undergraduate students pursue before they go to medical school and study to become doctors. Their undergraduate studies typically focus on subjects such as biology, chemistry, physics, neuroscience, and behavioural sciences. He is attending the same university that Christopher was supposed to attend.

Jennifer can’t really be bound for Harvard at this point – notifications to applications haven’t been sent out yet. She has already applied, or will apply very soon, and Darren is obviously confident she will get in. He seems very confident Rory will as well, unless he’s just being polite – he hasn’t even seen her transcript yet.

Jack and Jennifer are played by Matt Newton and Jeanette Brox – they had both been in Judging Amy and Family Law, although not in the same episodes. Granville Van Deusen, who plays their father Darren, was also in Judging Amy, and like Jeanette, had been in General Hospital spin-off, Port Charles.

TheraFlu

LORELAI: I mean, I’d like to have a good illness, something different, impressive. Just once I’d like to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m not feeling so good, my leg is haunted.”

RORY: See, there’s a reason why you only take one packet of TheraFlu at a time.

TheraFlu is a cold and flu treatment consisting of flavoured packets of powder that you make into a hot drink – it’s basically pain relief, decongestants, antihistamines and so on all at once. There are several different types, and the ones for night time make you sleepy. Rory is suggesting that Lorelai put more than one packet into her cup at once, giving her extra doses of everything. It’s believable based on Lorelai’s past behaviour taking over the counter medications.

Lorelai’s wish for a more exotic illness, such as a “haunted leg” is where the episode’s title comes from.

Sunny von Bülow

PARIS: I mean, women fall for men who are wrong for them all of the time, and then they get sidetracked from their goals. They give up careers and become alcoholics and, if you’re Sunny von Bülow, wind up in a coma completely incapable of stopping Glenn Close from playing you in a movie.

Martha “Sunny” von Bülow (born Martha Crawford, 1932-2008), heiress and socialite. Her second husband, Claus von Bülow (1926−2019), was convicted in 1982 of attempting to murder her by insulin overdose, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. A second trial found him not guilty, after experts testified that there was no insulin injection and that her symptoms were attributable to overuse of prescription drugs, combined with alcohol and diabetes. Sunny von Bülow lived almost 28 years in a persistent vegetative state from 1980 until her death.

The story was dramatised in the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune, directed by Barbet Schroeder, and based on the 1985 book of the same name by Claus’ lawyer, Alan Dershowitz. The role of Sunny is played by Glenn Close in the film. Reversal of Fortune received mostly positive reviews, and still has a very good reputation as a tantalising mystery and satire on the rich.

Hives

PARIS: I can’t date. I’m not genetically set up for it … I get no pleasure out of the prospect or the preparation. I’m covered in hives, I’ve showered four times, and for what? Some guy who doesn’t even have the brains to buy a Zagat so we don’t wind up in a restaurant that’s really just a front for a cocaine laundering ring?

Hives, also known as urticaria, is a skin rash with raised, itchy bumps that may burn or sting. It may be due to an infection or to an allergic reaction. Stress can also be a trigger, as seems to be the case with Paris. About 20% of people will have hives at least once, so it’s not rare, and treatment is usually antihistamines or cortisone.

“American Secretary of the Treasury traveling around with Bono”

PARIS: I mean, come on, Senator Boxer, as one of our foremost Democratic leaders, I ask you – do you really think it looks good to have the American Secretary of the Treasury traveling around with Bono? I mean, I know apparently he’s a saint, he’s going to save the world, yada, yada, yada, but my God! He never even takes the sunglasses off.

Paris refers to Paul H. O’Neill (1935-2020) economist and government official who served as the 72nd US secretary of the treasury from January 2001 to December 2002. He was known for his outspoken manner, which would eventually see him sacked in December 2002 for his public disagreements with the Bush administration.

In May 2002, O’Neill visited Africa with Irish rock star Bono (born Paul Hewson in 1960), to draw attention to its poverty. Bono is the frontman for band U2, frequently mentioned as one of Lorelai and Rory’s favourite bands. Since 1984, Bono had been involved in efforts to raise funding in aid of Africa, and in 1999 became a lobbyist in Washington DC on behalf of non-profit campaigns to raise awareness of Africa’s plight. He is known as one of the world’s best-known philanthropic performers.

Bono is known for always wearing dark glasses. In 2005, he revealed that his eyes were extremely sensitive to light, and in 2014 that the sensitivity was caused by glaucoma.