Is There Alternating Current in Harry's World?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184194

Justcorbly says:
> > 
> > Can magic cure a grave illness like cancer?  Dumbledore did not 
> cure himself. <snip>

Sarah responded:
> Dumbledore didn't cure himself, because he didn't have a mundane 
illness.  They can mend broken bones in an instant.  Cancer might 
take Poppy, I don't know, a week? <snip>

> The only thing I can think of that seems to be even less treatable
in the WW than it is in the MW, is bad eyesight.  Unless someone got
their eyes poked out and replaced with magical ones, that seems to
work.  The rest of them just wear glasses.

Carol adds:
I agree that Dumbledore's injury, the result of a terrible curse, is
not comparable to cancer (though I'd hardly call cancer a mundane
illness). St. Mungo's specializes in magical illnesses and injuries,
ranging from Dragonpox and Spattergroit to Splinching to vicious hexes
and poisonous potions, but I don't doubt that, like Madam Pomfrey,
they can also quickly heal broken bones and noses (unless they're
caused by Dark Magic, as I suspect Mad-Eye Moody's injuries were).
Snape is among the few Wizards we know of who can reverse, or at least
diminish the effects of, Dark Magic (the opal necklace, the cursed
ring, Sectumsempra). I suspect that St. Mungo's has someone like him
on their staff; if not, they could certainly use such a specialist.
Too bad he didn't survive to join them.

What magic doesn't seem to treat or heal or cure is Muggle ailments or
ailments shared by Muggles and Wizards. As you say, many Wizards wear
eyeglasses. Evidently, there's no magical cure for myopia or ambliopia
or astigmatism (or whatever the technical term is for two eyes facing
opposite directions, as in the Gaunt family). They seem to have no
dentists (Hermione speaks of dentistry as a Muggle profession)
although teeth can be shortened and perhaps whitened by magic. (The
Wizards in general don't seem to care how their teeth look.) Professor
Trelawney predicts a bout of flu (evidently an annual occurrence), but
there's no indication that flu is treated magically. Perkins, Mr.
Weasley's co-worker, suffers from lumbago, which presumably can't be
cured by magic, either. I very much doubt, under those circumstances,
that cancer can be treated magically, either. An, unfortunately for
Sirius Black and Tom Riddle and Severus Snape and many other troubled
or psychologically damaged characters, apparently there's no magical
substitute for much-needed psychological counseling.

Magic, JKR says, has its limits. It can't conjure food. It can't bring
back the dead. And it can't, apparently, cure illness caused by
anything other than a magical virus like Dragonpox. Warts and acne,
maybe, if you're careful not to blast your nose off. But not, as far
as I can determine, ordinary Muggle illnesses. (Muggle-borns are
probably vaccinated as children. I don't know what protection
Wizard-born children have against, say, polio or measles or
diphtheria. I think it's something that JKR just didn't think about or
consider important.

Carol, still getting used to her new Muggle eyeglasses and needing to
sit farther away from her monitor