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Harry Potter - Medical Science Explained

2019-06-12 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, a guest · recording, 14:43 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Medicine and his doctor years · mode: Explanation and tutorial

As a junior doctor, Ali explains the real medicine behind scenes of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: gigantism for Hagrid, the plants and poisons in Snape's questions, bezoars, the elixir of life as anti-aging research, and rigidity as in Petrificus Totalus.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Intro: a junior doctor explains the medical scenes of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

00:00:25 — Hagrid's entrance: gigantism, acromegaly and growth plates

  • ★★ Ali names gigantism and acromegaly as the closest real conditions to Hagrid's half-giant size; both are caused by excess growth hormone. — 00:00:25
  • ★★ People with gigantism, the childhood form, can be between seven and nine feet tall, according to Wikipedia. — 00:00:55 · Wikipedia
  • ★★ Growth plates fuse by adulthood, so bones can no longer lengthen; excess growth hormone in adults instead enlarges the face, hands and feet. — 00:01:20

00:02:01 — Asphodel and wormwood: lilies, Artemis, the doe Patronus and artemisinin

  • ★ Asphodel was once thought to cure snake bites and used to be classified in the lily family before it got its own classification. — 00:02:32
  • ★★ Wormwood (Artemisia) gives artemisinin, the active ingredient of many anti-malaria drugs, discovered by the Chinese scientist Tu Youyou, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ Ali reads Snape's first question to Harry, on asphodel and wormwood, as a reference to Lily Potter, a foreshadowing of later events and a real medical reference. — 00:03:31

00:03:51 — Bezoars: real gastrointestinal masses, Ambroise Paré's experiment and arsenic

  • ★★ Real bezoars are any trapped mass in the gastrointestinal system, built up from certain food substances; milk's protein casein reacting with stomach acid can form one. — 00:04:00
  • ★★ In 1575 the French surgeon Ambroise Paré tested a bezoar on a king's cook condemned to hang for stealing cutlery, who agreed to drink poison instead. — 00:04:29
  • ★★ The bezoar did not save the cook in Paré's experiment: he died about seven hours after taking the poison, a one-person study showing bezoars do not cure every poison. — 00:04:58
  • ★★ Arsenic poisons by its arsenate ion, which the body uses in glycolysis in place of phosphate, so fewer ATP molecules are made and the body is starved of energy. — 00:05:28
  • ★★ Bezoars hold phosphate in their crystal structure; in a solution containing arsenic, the arsenate swaps with the bezoar's phosphate, inactivating the toxic arsenate. — 00:05:57
  • ★★★ Ali concludes that bezoars might help inactivate certain poisons in some cases, but they are not the catch-all magical cure they were once believed to be. (hedged) — 00:06:26
  • ★★ Monkshood and wolfbane are both names for aconite, a real poisonous plant; its toxin aconitine binds to the voltage-gated sodium channels found throughout the body. — 00:06:26

00:06:51 — Monkshood and wolfbane: aconite, sodium channels, nerves and the heart

  • ★★ Aconitine holds sodium channels open, so nerves cannot conduct an action potential, and the poisoned person loses sensation and motor control of almost the whole body. — 00:07:14
  • ★★ Sodium channels poisoned by aconite cannot generate a proper cardiac action potential, so the heart beats irregularly and can go into a ventricular arrhythmia. — 00:07:44
  • ★★ All three questions Snape asks Harry in the first potions lesson concern different poisons, and all have some basis in medical science. — 00:08:13
  • ★★ Ali calls research into prolonging life and reducing aging a really exciting field of medical science that few in the general public know about. — 00:08:35
  • ★★ Ali recommends subscribing to the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt and watching its video introducing anti-aging research. — 00:08:35

00:08:38 — The elixir of life: anti-aging research, healthspan and unicorn blood

  • ★★ a guest: In the Kurzgesagt clip Ali plays, the narrator says scientists want medicine to optimise healthspan, the disease-free part of life, rather than lifespan, by attacking aging itself as the root cause of most bodily defects. — 00:09:18
  • ★ The old quest for the Philosopher's Stone was called the Magnum Opus, which Ali believes is Latin for "the great work". (hedged) — 00:09:18
  • ★★★ Ali finds it striking that people pour billions into campaigns against heart disease and cancer, and millions into rare genetic conditions, yet so few think of funding anti-aging research. — 00:10:00

  • ★★★ Ali argues that curing aging as a disease would remove most worry about heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's and dementia, which are strongly associated with aging. — 00:10:00

    “if we can cure aging as a disease, then we wouldn't need to worry about heart disease”

  • ★★ Ali says the idea that blood transfusions from younger to older people might help combat aging has very sparse evidence. — 00:10:59

  • ★★ Rigor mortis, which Petrificus Totalus could resemble, is the third stage of death, when the body goes rigid, after pallor mortis (going pale) and algor mortis (going cold). — 00:11:20

00:11:50 — Petrificus Totalus: rigor mortis, upper motor neuron lesions and tetanus toxin

  • ★★ Upper motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord inhibit the muscles; when they fail, only the lower motor neurons work, so muscles become hyperactive and rigid. — 00:12:19
  • ★★ Tetanus toxin, which causes a rigid paralysis, is the second most potent toxin in the world after botulinum toxin. — 00:12:19
  • ★★ Tetanus toxin inactivates synaptobrevin, so inhibitory neurons release less GABA and muscles become hyperactive, which Ali likens to what happens to Neville under Petrificus Totalus. — 00:13:17

00:13:46 — Closing scene and sign-off with a shout-out to Dr Ed Hope

  • ★★ Ali recommends the channel of his friend and colleague Dr Ed Hope, who breaks down the medical science in the Marvel films, anime and similar. — 00:13:46

Mentioned

Central: anti-aging research · bezoar

Also: People: Ambroise Paré · Ed Hope · J. K. Rowling · Tu Youyou

Works: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Organizations: Kurzgesagt · Marvel · Wikipedia

Concepts: aconite · acromegaly · artemisinin · gigantism · rigor mortis · tetanus toxin

Characters: Hagrid · Harry Potter (character, “Harry Potter”) · Lily Potter · Neville · Nicolas Flamel · Snape

Only in the description or credits: CGP Grey · Harry Potter (book series) · The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant

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