Sherlock Holmes & House M.D.

Sherlock Holmes.
Reason.
(through drug use). “I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind
that its secondary action is a matter of small movement.”

Egocentrism.
“Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it” “Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.
“Interesting, though elementary.” “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions
were erroneous.”

“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me, but he would cut his tongue out
before he would own it to any third person. I may have a laugh at them, if I have nothing else.”

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work, which had been specially designed to please him. I
confess too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my
pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doing.”

Drug use.
“…for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco which took me by the throat and set me
coughing. …Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black clay pipe
between his lips. Several rolls of paper lay around him.”

“…and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers
he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. Finally he thrust the sharp point
home, pressed down on the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-linked armchair with a long
sigh of satisfaction.

“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his
long white hand up for it.

“Which is it to-day.” I asked, “morphine or cocaine?”

House.
Reason.

House breaks the law, violates medical ethics in order to solve a case or be fulfilled.
Unorthodox bedside manner and uses unconventional treatments.
House is a strong nonconformist, little regard for how others perceive him. Difficult for accepting
social rules, resistance to change.

Injects him self with nitro-glycerine to cause a migraine headache in order to prove a rival’s
migraine cure was flawed. He late uses LSD to stop the migraine and antidepressants to stop the
effects of LSD.

House experiments with Methadone in the episode, The Softer Side, and this changes his
personality. He acts nice, and this causes suspicion between Wilson and House, leading to them
finding him having stopped breathing. At the end, he decides to not to be on Methadone because
he couldn’t do his job right.

His diagnoses are accurate and similar to Holmes, scene where House diagnoses an waiting room
full of patients in a few minutes in the hospital clinic.
Drug use.
“I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem.”
› After placing a bet with Cuddy to not take Vicodin for a week, he realises that he does
have an addition, but not a problem because it doesn’t interfere with his work or life.
Both characters need drugs or a challenging case in order to be fulfilled, otherwise the characters
fall apart.