Dr. Broda's story about Janet Parker, the last known person to die from smallpox in 1978, is true; however, it isn't true that she died in four days. She likely contracted the virus on July 25th, fell ill on August 11th, and died on September 11th. Her mother was also infected, but survived.
At the beginning of the episode, the spoken language is Afrikaans and not Dutch, as implied. Afrikaans is native to South Africa (hence the South African actor as ship captain) and neighboring Namibia. Afrikaans originates from Dutch and is thus reasonably similar. Afrikaans is said to be the youngest language on earth.
The Captain's cat was named 'Gerrit'. Gerrit Van Der Meer was the Unit Production Manager for this episode and is Dutch.
House says, "Look, I don't want to go all Godfather on you. This was business," referring to the movie The Godfather (1972), a tale of the Corleone family and their rise to control the Italian Mafia. In the movie Tom Hagen tells Sonny Corleone, "This is business, not personal."
House is seen playing with a model skull on his desk. Sherlock Holmes, upon whom the character of House is partially based, also had a skull.