Disambiguation: Prior to House, "Cane and Able" was the title of a Modern Madcaps

Modern Madcaps

Modern Madcaps is an animated film series produced by Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios animation division between the years 1958 and 1967. The series featured assorted characters that later became part of the Harvey Comics library.- List of shorts :...

 short featured in Season 5 Episode 55 of The Harveytoons Show

The Harveytoons Show

The Harveytoons Show is a television series presenting theatrical animated cartoons produced from October 1950 until March 1962 and produced by Famous Studios, featuring Harvey Comics characters and series including: Casper the Friendly Ghost, Little Audrey, Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare, Baby Huey,...

.

"Cane and Able" is the second episode of the third season of House

House (TV series)

House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...

and the forty-eighth episode overall. The episode's title is a pun

Pun

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

 referencing the biblical

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 siblings Cain and Abel

Cain and Abel

In the Hebrew Bible, Cain and Abel are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only....

 as well as House's cane and his reinforced confidence in his ability as a diagnostician.

Plot

House

Gregory House

Gregory House, M.D., or simply referred to as House, is a fictional antihero and title character of the American television series House, played by Hugh Laurie. He is the Chief of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, where he leads a team of diagnosticians...

's ego has taken a blow believing he failed to diagnose his last case, and it's affecting him physically. He is in pain again, although he denies it. House's new case is seven-year-old Clancy, a product of in vitro fertilization, who's been admitted to the hospital with rectal

Rectum

The rectum is the final straight portion of the large intestine in some mammals, and the gut in others, terminating in the anus. The human rectum is about 12 cm long...

 bleeding and proclamations of being tortured by aliens

Extraterrestrial life

Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...

. As the team runs tests on him, they discover the same test is giving conflicting results. House thinks the child is having nightmares with the one symptom of having a bleeding disorder

Von Willebrand disease

von Willebrand disease is the most common hereditary coagulation abnormality described in humans, although it can also be acquired as a result of other medical conditions. It arises from a qualitative or quantitative deficiency of von Willebrand factor , a multimeric protein that is required for...

. The tests on the bleeding disorder are first negative and then positive, leading both Chase

Robert Chase

Dr. Robert Chase is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is portrayed by Jesse Spencer. His character was a part of the team of diagnosticians who worked under Gregory House until the end of the third season when House fires him. However, he was then re-hired in season 6...

 and Foreman

Eric Foreman

Eric Foreman, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is portrayed by Omar Epps.-Background:A neurologist, Foreman was a member of Dr. Gregory House's handpicked team of specialists at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's Diagnostic Medicine Department...

 to think that the other made a mistake. The tests keep going back and forth. When Clancy claims to have a tracking device in the back of his neck, Chase discovers an unknown metal object exactly in that spot, and the team isn't quite sure what to think. House, however, surmises from his chart the metal in the back of his neck is a surgical pin that had not been completely removed several years prior and had migrated via the circulatory system.

Meanwhile, Cuddy

Lisa Cuddy

Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. She also becomes House's love interest through the...

 and Wilson

James Wilson (House)

James Evan Wilson, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is played by Robert Sean Leonard. The character first appears in the show's pilot episode when he introduces a medical case to Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of the show. Wilson is Dr. House's only true friend,...

 decide not to tell House the truth about his previous case, thinking that perhaps he will learn some humility if he believes he is not always right. Cuddy has her doubts, but Wilson argues that House's self-confidence makes him increasingly reckless. Because he could eventually kill a patient by employing some insane treatment, this arguably justifies lying to House. Cameron discovers the lie and is outraged, but Cuddy convinces her to hold off telling House.

When House and the team discover cells with a different type of DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 in Clancy's body, they are forced to give Clancy's alien claims a little more credence. A frustrated House gives up on his young patient, forcing Cuddy to re-think her desire to hold back the truth. When she finally tells House the truth about his last case, he is relieved that his idea was right; that he is still able as a diagnostician; and suddenly realizes what Clancy might have.

House tells the parents that Clancy has chimerism

Chimera (genetics)

A chimera or chimaera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction. If the different cells have emerged from the same zygote, the organism is called a mosaic...

, where there are two sets of DNA in one body. In effect Clancy's twin brother had merged with him in the womb. In order to remove the "dead" cells in his brain, they have to perform brain surgery by inducing electric shocks to the part of the brain which is responsible for hallucination

Hallucination

A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...

s, causing Clancy's own cells to "light up", while his brother's cells would remain dark, allowing for their identification and removal.

When doctors fail to induce the hallucinations that would be strong enough, House orders higher and higher voltage shocks. His team warns him he would be way over the preset maximum with the next electric shock, and he shows the self-restraint that Wilson was afraid he might not possess. He resorts to simply scaring the boy. The level of hallucinations allows for clear distinction between two sets of cells, allowing the cells belonging to Clancy's brother to be removed.

Later, House goes to Wilson in his office and confronts him about his last case. Wilson claims that if House had known the truth, he would have thought of himself as God, to which House simply replies "God doesn't limp." House soon returns to using his cane.

External links

• "Cane and Able" at Fox.com