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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 2076 Views
It is a little odd. Maybe because channelers weren't united for a while? - 03/02/2012 02:24:17 PM 998 Views
Re: How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 03/02/2012 02:49:02 PM 838 Views
It has always seemed unlikely. - 03/02/2012 04:53:14 PM 907 Views
i think it could be - 03/02/2012 07:56:18 PM 1045 Views
Re: i think it could be - 04/02/2012 12:56:57 PM 973 Views
I'm really not seeing it. - 05/02/2012 04:19:38 AM 833 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 690 Views
Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 07:34:45 AM 1085 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 09:48:52 AM 902 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 03:04:48 PM 932 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 06:58:41 PM 814 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 12:00:05 AM 831 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 04:05:57 AM 753 Views
I don't see why people are having trouble believing Traveling was lost in the Breaking - 05/02/2012 05:53:32 PM 794 Views
not to mention - 05/02/2012 07:16:59 PM 755 Views
Re: not to mention - 05/02/2012 08:50:50 PM 1073 Views
Re: not to mention - 05/02/2012 09:33:40 PM 790 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 981 Views
Medical knowledge... - 06/02/2012 02:15:13 AM 684 Views
My point was that it's surprising only ONE Healing weave survived - 11/02/2012 08:25:02 PM 752 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 689 Views
Rant rant rant - 11/02/2012 08:26:56 PM 801 Views
I agree. I was going to respond but you covered most of the bases. - 08/02/2012 04:13:20 PM 679 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 09:52:35 PM 854 Views
You really need to read the BWB sections regarding this - 14/02/2012 01:20:20 AM 674 Views
he needs to read it just to see it for his own eyes - 14/02/2012 02:46:44 AM 634 Views
Re: he needs to read it just to see it for his own eyes - 14/02/2012 10:15:46 PM 713 Views
I would agree with you on less structured parts of the series - 15/02/2012 03:38:37 PM 613 Views
Re: I would agree with you on less structured parts of the series - 16/02/2012 09:41:29 PM 766 Views
That I can agree with - 17/02/2012 05:46:49 AM 821 Views
Re: That I can agree with - 17/02/2012 09:26:50 AM 685 Views
Seriously! The Yellow should be ashamed - 17/02/2012 01:49:07 PM 830 Views
Well to be fair to the Yellow (which generally annoy me as an Ajah)... - 17/02/2012 06:20:06 PM 751 Views
Seems reasonable - 18/02/2012 05:49:40 PM 711 Views
Quote found - 12/02/2012 01:35:58 AM 640 Views
My thoughts - 05/02/2012 10:14:59 PM 871 Views
Re: How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 13/02/2012 12:24:35 PM 811 Views
a few more other factors - 15/02/2012 08:22:02 PM 671 Views

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