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Medical knowledge... fionwe1987 Send a noteboard - 06/02/2012 02:15:13 AM
I think you underestimate the amount of medical knowledge possessed by the current Healers. It takes the Yellows less than a minute after seeing Fire and Earth being used in a "Healing" weave to come up with plans to use them against heart conditions and so on. Which indicates a clear idea of the problems the current battlefield Healing couldn't solve, and also a pretty detailed picture of those problems.

While you're right that they don't have codified medical knowledge, especially at the sub-organ, tissue, cellular, and sub-cellular levels, they do have something that other primitive Healers in our world never had... Delving.

Take the case of Nynaeve delving Naeff. She doesn't describe the surface of the brain as the cortex, and doesn't give names to the deeper regions of the brain where she sees the taint-compulsion reach, but she can sense it, and Heal each of those individual regions. And she can regenerate various cell types, as she did when she regrew flesh and skin and nerves and blood-vessels in Rand's forearm when Semirhage burned it.

What Nynaeve doesn't have is the terms for these things. And she probably can't send weaves into the "pleasure centers of the brain" without delving, like Semirhage can. But from all evidence, her Healing is as fine and detailed as Semirhage's. Since she can actually purge specific poisons and microbe-based diseases with no issues, I assume that a lack of actual knowledge in biochemistry and microbiology is not a hindrance, due to delving.

None of this negates your point about why this technique was lost, of course. Nynaeve is an outlier in that she has extraordinary abilities in Delving and Healing. And women like her were incredibly rare even in the AoL. No way could this technique have survived the Breaking.
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How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 03/02/2012 09:09:39 AM 2145 Views
It is a little odd. Maybe because channelers weren't united for a while? - 03/02/2012 02:24:17 PM 1075 Views
Re: How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 03/02/2012 02:49:02 PM 920 Views
It has always seemed unlikely. - 03/02/2012 04:53:14 PM 982 Views
i think it could be - 03/02/2012 07:56:18 PM 1117 Views
Re: i think it could be - 04/02/2012 12:56:57 PM 1043 Views
I'm really not seeing it. - 05/02/2012 04:19:38 AM 901 Views
It's always struck me as a tool of the Author more than a good hard fact - 04/02/2012 01:40:06 AM 757 Views
Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 07:34:45 AM 1173 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 09:48:52 AM 989 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 03:04:48 PM 1001 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 06:58:41 PM 889 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 12:00:05 AM 892 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 04:05:57 AM 846 Views
I don't see why people are having trouble believing Traveling was lost in the Breaking - 05/02/2012 05:53:32 PM 871 Views
not to mention - 05/02/2012 07:16:59 PM 827 Views
Re: not to mention - 05/02/2012 08:50:50 PM 1162 Views
Re: not to mention - 05/02/2012 09:33:40 PM 870 Views
Re: I don't see why people are having trouble believing Traveling was lost in the Breaking - 05/02/2012 07:39:51 PM 1062 Views
Medical knowledge... - 06/02/2012 02:15:13 AM 752 Views
My point was that it's surprising only ONE Healing weave survived - 11/02/2012 08:25:02 PM 831 Views
Re: I don't see why people are having trouble believing Traveling was lost in the Breaking - 05/02/2012 09:11:04 PM 761 Views
Rant rant rant - 11/02/2012 08:26:56 PM 902 Views
I agree. I was going to respond but you covered most of the bases. - 08/02/2012 04:13:20 PM 750 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 09:52:35 PM 936 Views
You really need to read the BWB sections regarding this - 14/02/2012 01:20:20 AM 756 Views
he needs to read it just to see it for his own eyes - 14/02/2012 02:46:44 AM 720 Views
Re: he needs to read it just to see it for his own eyes - 14/02/2012 10:15:46 PM 797 Views
I would agree with you on less structured parts of the series - 15/02/2012 03:38:37 PM 683 Views
Re: I would agree with you on less structured parts of the series - 16/02/2012 09:41:29 PM 840 Views
That I can agree with - 17/02/2012 05:46:49 AM 897 Views
Re: That I can agree with - 17/02/2012 09:26:50 AM 752 Views
Seriously! The Yellow should be ashamed - 17/02/2012 01:49:07 PM 908 Views
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Seems reasonable - 18/02/2012 05:49:40 PM 781 Views
Quote found - 12/02/2012 01:35:58 AM 712 Views
My thoughts - 05/02/2012 10:14:59 PM 954 Views
Re: How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 13/02/2012 12:24:35 PM 880 Views
a few more other factors - 15/02/2012 08:22:02 PM 745 Views

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