Doctor June and the Tales of Anatomy

My three year old daily inspires me with endless hours of blogging material.  Her latest obsession is the human body.  She's trying to decide whether she'd rather be a pediatrician or an internal medicine doctor when she grows up.  Last night when I was tucking her in I found myself describing the entire male and female reproductive systems (But why?  Mommy, why?).  Long story short, I've decided that even Anatomy and Physiology deserve a good story.  Finding the subject in the form of a teddy bear was a little unexpected, however.

Said daughter is fully knowledgeable about different types of cells in the body and what they do, but especially white blood cells (it is cold and flu season, after all).  As she puts it, "white blood cells find and gobble up things that don't belong."  An unfortunate accident with a friendly teddy bear led my daughter to discover that teddy bears only have white insides.  The following conversation ensued:

"Why are his insides white, Mommy?"
"Maybe it's his blood cells that make his insides look white.  But it's probably just his stuffing."
"Why doesn't he have red blood cells?"
"Maybe because he's not alive, so he doesn't need red blood cells to carry oxygen around his body."
"Oh.  Why does he need white blood cells?"
"Teddy bears are a great comfort when you're sick.  He wouldn't want to get stuck with a virus, would he?"
"Oh."

The discovery that teddy bears actually fight viral infections has yet to be published in a medical journal, but I'm sure the research is well underway.  Didn't they spend a bunch of research money on why chicken soup makes you feel better when you're sick?  Why not teddy bears?  In the meantime, I feel a story brewing about a heroic bear who assists children in fighting viral infections simply by being snuggly.