[HPforGrownups] Wizard Medicine

[Catherine Keegan]

No: HPFGUIDX 34683

I thought I would toss in my two knuts' worth before going back into lurk mode.

Wizard cosmetic surgery:  It may even be there but not everyone *wants or 
needs* to be pretty.  I think Moody rather enjoys his frightening 
face.  Hermione, raised in the Muggle world and probably with loads of TV 
to influence her not to mention those magazines in her parents' dental 
offices, knows that you *need* to be beautiful.  As an aside, during our 
trips to the UK, we both noticed that many of the above forty crowd seemed 
to need a lot of dental care.  We saw a lot of missing teeth and naturally 
colored teeth, too.  People had wrinkles and scars and managed to live 
happy lives.  I'm sure the paranoia caused by the media's obsession with 
scrawny youth will take hold there, too.

And as for medicine itself, only Voldemort and Flammel have made conscious 
efforts to cheat death.  It happens.  People get sick and die.  Our lovely 
world of Wizards is quite mortal (for which I applaud JKR.  It would have 
been far too simple to make them all superhuman, good looking and 
smart).  Even today's medicine which, at times, resembles magic, can't 
defeat cancer.  Having Barty's mother consign herself to prison for her 
last days so her nasty son can go free is so, dare I say it, human that I 
understand why she would do so.  If she could pass her wand over her body 
and free herself of all disease, why bother changing places?  If she was 
that powerful, why not just zip over to the island, disable those pesky 
Dementors and take her boy home?  Tom's pathetic mother dying in childbirth 
twists the future Voldemort's story into something richer than having him 
arrive a full-blown evil overlord.

Wizard technology and science are fun.   There are things that seem quite 
modern such as the Ministry's cars.  Things that are sort of now but seem 
archaic such as listening to the Wizarding Wireless but no mention of 
television or any kind of equivalent to a record player/tape deck/CD 
player.   Made me wonder how the kids ever heard of the Weird 
Sisters.  (Maybe there's more than one station?  I wonder what sort of 
ratings gimmicks they'd come up with.  No.  Wait.  Don't go there.  They'd 
probably use someone like Lockhart.)

Although there isn't enough information to form a good, solid answer, it 
seems to me that their medicine is really good at fixing visible problems: 
broken bones, shortening teeth, probably keeping your hair whatever color 
you want, closing up deep cuts and it also knows how to deal with magical 
ailments/aftereffects of curses and spells but it doesn't seem to be able 
to deal with horrible, insidious diseases like cancer.  I've often wondered 
how much overlap there would be between the two worlds and the image of 
Dumbledore, decked out in his robes and fancy boots, waiting in an English 
waiting room for some kind of routine medical check springs to mind.

Catherine in California