Mirror Mirror (House episode)

"Mirror Mirror" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of House and the seventy-fifth episode overall. It aired on October 30, 2007.

House's team gets a patient (Frank Whaley) with breathing problems with no apparent cause. He was just robbed and does not have I.D. on him, and they do not have his past medical records. Foreman suggests it might be a result of a vocal cord spasm, and they give him methacholine which would worsen it and thus provide a diagnosis. The patient complains of additional symptoms, and Foreman determines that he is faking them. His alleged symptoms are the same as those of other patients, and the name he gave them was the same as the paramedic. Foreman thinks he might have Munchausens, but House thinks it might be a rare form of anterograde amnesia known as Giovannini mirror syndrome that causes a patient to mimic those around him. House suggests that they try to convince the patient that he is a doctor, since a mirror syndrome patient would be convinced, but a Munchausens patient would not. They go to one of Wilson's surgeries, and the patient acts like a doctor. Specifically, he acts like Wilson. Wilson later notes that mirror patients always mirror the most dominant person in the room, which means that Wilson was more dominant than House. House explains that as a consequence of the fact that Wilson was in charge of the surgery.

House notices that the patient's blood thickens dangerously when his body temperature drops (cold agglutinin disease), something that cannot be faked. They look for an infection that could have caused it. The patient has his car keys on him, so House sends Cole to look for the patient's car, and Thirteen volunteers to go along. Brennan suggests that the patient might have a fungus, but the cure does not work. They put the patient in a whirlpool to keep him warm. House suggests they get a medical history by checking his blood for antibodies. The test reveals that he has had histoplasmosis, a disease common in Ohio, but also coccidioidomycosis, residing in southwestern US, and Chagas disease, pointing to Central America. The patient has heart problems, so Foreman suggests they biopsy the heart. Brennan says that will kill him since the patient just had a heart attack. Foreman then makes a House-like statement, sarcastically saying "We biopsy his toe instead". House tells everyone to biopsy the patient's heart, which reveals nothing.