"Ventricular Tachycardia. Digitalis"

I am currently in the middle of my cardiology module at school and digitalis shows up a lot.  I wrote previously about digitalis in a post about an episode of The X-files.  I just remembered that digitalis poisoning showed up much more accuratley portrayed in Casino Royale.  Bond manages to induce some vomitting but at that point some of the drug has started affecting his heart.  He ends up with ventricular tachycardia and is defibrillated in time with the help of Vesper Lynd.  This was a change from the novel where Bond was under threat of getting shot with a cane gun.   

Bond Villains and Their Medical Problems

So after posting about Dr. No the other day, I realized that most Bond villains have medical problems.  Naturally, Fleming and the people at EON did this to contrast the villains with the suave and fit 007.  Interestingly enough, Osama bin Laden also had health problems and lived in secret lairs and many have drawn comparisons to the deceased terrorist leader and Bond villains.

Today I will be discussing the health of Le Chiffre, the villain from Casino Royale.  In the novel, he seems mostly described as a very unattractive man who uses a Benzedrine inhaler (a racemic mixture of amphetamine).

In the recent Daniel Craig film, Le Chiffre (played by Mads Mikkelson) seems to have suffered an eye injury in his past and his tears contain blood.  This is a condition called hemolacria, a rare disorder with different causes.  One of the good lines in the film is when Le Chiffre explains his condition to a man he is playing poker with on his boat, "Weeping blood comes merely from a derangement of the tear duct, my dear General. Nothing sinister."


Just conveniently sinister-looking.

Julius No, M.D.

So last night I was re-watching the first James Bond film Dr. No.  Afterwards, I decided to find out what he was a doctor in since it was not really mentioned in the movie.  According to the novel biography, Dr. No attended a medical school in Milwaukee (Medical College of Wisconsin?).  It is unclear if he finished his studies but he seems to have adopted the title of Doctor anyway (as I sort of guessed).

Whatever medical school Dr. No attended must have been digging from the bottom of the barrel.  Not only was Julius No a mad scientist with a criminal history but both his hands were prosthetic.  I would have liked to see him practice.

One final note.  All Bond villains seem to have some sort of medical abnormality.  Besides having no hands, Dr. No also has dextrocardia which means that his heart points to the right instead of his left as most people do.  This is a congenital condition that arises around the third week of embryonic development.