I got a medical doctor who is known by
his colleagues as dr. zombie dr. Steve
Schlossman oh there we go
hello sir well doctor thanks very much
for having me
so you wrote a book called the zombie
autopsies okay which intrigues me
greatly because as a work of fiction but
you’re a medical doctor you can bring a
lot of knowledge into making that an
interesting story yes when I wrote the
zombie autopsies they just to be clear
they’re not real zombies don’t exist but
you can’t look at a zombie and be a
physician and not think to yourself
they’re sick so I wanted to try to
explain as best I could
the medical etiology of the zombie
process knowing that zombies aren’t real
so I started with the brain because I’m
a brain doctor their frontal lobes are
gone they can’t think in any kind of
complicated way they can’t open doors
they can’t open windows you can eat a
sandwich while you’re running away from
a zombie
they are ravenously hungry that’s the
ventromedial hypothalamus that’s the
region of the brain that’s responsible
for hunger now there’s other issues that
I actually find really fascinating like
how do they move with their muscles to
Cain so you’d have to have a virus that
preserves muscle processes the actin and
the mice and the two proteins that have
to run past each other one of her
muscles to move and there are viruses
that do that an easy example that would
be the rabies virus which still creates
clonic movements where you jerk around a
lot and you have decreased cognition but
you remain mobile because a good virus
wants you to stay mobile long enough to
spread yourself to other people so I
tried to address each of these issues in
the book as I told the story of
essentially the impending end of the
world so it in your now you work at the
Harvard Medical School is that correct
yeah I do I’m at Massachusetts General
Hospital and I teach at Harvard Medical
School so in your in in your
professional opinion what is the
prognosis the psychiatric prognosis for
a zombie how would you
I’m just curious I mean this is the
future you know right so it’s not good
you don’t want to get the zombie bug but
like any disease it has a natural
history so if you are noticed early in
the progressionist disease so let’s say
you present to the emergency room with
the early stages of what’s already
recognized as a zombie outbreak then we
have the opportunity to interrupt that
outbreak both in the general population
are also in the individual the longer we
let it progress and more importantly the
more frightened we get the worse the
prognosis becomes for the individual as
well as the society okay so the real
bottom line here is it’s whatever
attempt we can all invest to preserve
civilization but really civilization is
gone that’s that’s that’s the prognosis
here it seems to me based on all that
that that I have heard so duck doctor
zombie thanks for being on Startalk with
us and i yeah you have a unique
expertise here you might come back to
you in case we need it just
his colleagues as dr. zombie dr. Steve
Schlossman oh there we go
hello sir well doctor thanks very much
for having me
so you wrote a book called the zombie
autopsies okay which intrigues me
greatly because as a work of fiction but
you’re a medical doctor you can bring a
lot of knowledge into making that an
interesting story yes when I wrote the
zombie autopsies they just to be clear
they’re not real zombies don’t exist but
you can’t look at a zombie and be a
physician and not think to yourself
they’re sick so I wanted to try to
explain as best I could
the medical etiology of the zombie
process knowing that zombies aren’t real
so I started with the brain because I’m
a brain doctor their frontal lobes are
gone they can’t think in any kind of
complicated way they can’t open doors
they can’t open windows you can eat a
sandwich while you’re running away from
a zombie
they are ravenously hungry that’s the
ventromedial hypothalamus that’s the
region of the brain that’s responsible
for hunger now there’s other issues that
I actually find really fascinating like
how do they move with their muscles to
Cain so you’d have to have a virus that
preserves muscle processes the actin and
the mice and the two proteins that have
to run past each other one of her
muscles to move and there are viruses
that do that an easy example that would
be the rabies virus which still creates
clonic movements where you jerk around a
lot and you have decreased cognition but
you remain mobile because a good virus
wants you to stay mobile long enough to
spread yourself to other people so I
tried to address each of these issues in
the book as I told the story of
essentially the impending end of the
world so it in your now you work at the
Harvard Medical School is that correct
yeah I do I’m at Massachusetts General
Hospital and I teach at Harvard Medical
School so in your in in your
professional opinion what is the
prognosis the psychiatric prognosis for
a zombie how would you
I’m just curious I mean this is the
future you know right so it’s not good
you don’t want to get the zombie bug but
like any disease it has a natural
history so if you are noticed early in
the progressionist disease so let’s say
you present to the emergency room with
the early stages of what’s already
recognized as a zombie outbreak then we
have the opportunity to interrupt that
outbreak both in the general population
are also in the individual the longer we
let it progress and more importantly the
more frightened we get the worse the
prognosis becomes for the individual as
well as the society okay so the real
bottom line here is it’s whatever
attempt we can all invest to preserve
civilization but really civilization is
gone that’s that’s that’s the prognosis
here it seems to me based on all that
that that I have heard so duck doctor
zombie thanks for being on Startalk with
us and i yeah you have a unique
expertise here you might come back to
you in case we need it just
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