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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 2155 Views
It is a little odd. Maybe because channelers weren't united for a while? - 03/02/2012 02:24:17 PM 1084 Views
Re: How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 03/02/2012 02:49:02 PM 928 Views
It has always seemed unlikely. - 03/02/2012 04:53:14 PM 991 Views
i think it could be - 03/02/2012 07:56:18 PM 1128 Views
Re: i think it could be - 04/02/2012 12:56:57 PM 1052 Views
I'm really not seeing it. - 05/02/2012 04:19:38 AM 909 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 765 Views
Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 07:34:45 AM 1183 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 09:48:52 AM 996 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 03:04:48 PM 1008 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 04/02/2012 06:58:41 PM 898 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 12:00:05 AM 901 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 04:05:57 AM 857 Views
I don't see why people are having trouble believing Traveling was lost in the Breaking - 05/02/2012 05:53:32 PM 880 Views
not to mention - 05/02/2012 07:16:59 PM 838 Views
Re: not to mention - 05/02/2012 08:50:50 PM 1171 Views
Re: not to mention - 05/02/2012 09:33:40 PM 879 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 1069 Views
Medical knowledge... - 06/02/2012 02:15:13 AM 761 Views
My point was that it's surprising only ONE Healing weave survived - 11/02/2012 08:25:02 PM 839 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 769 Views
Rant rant rant - 11/02/2012 08:26:56 PM 910 Views
I agree. I was going to respond but you covered most of the bases. - 08/02/2012 04:13:20 PM 759 Views
Re: Your theory is based on rather severely flawed assumptions - 05/02/2012 09:52:35 PM 944 Views
You really need to read the BWB sections regarding this - 14/02/2012 01:20:20 AM 766 Views
he needs to read it just to see it for his own eyes - 14/02/2012 02:46:44 AM 729 Views
Re: he needs to read it just to see it for his own eyes - 14/02/2012 10:15:46 PM 808 Views
I would agree with you on less structured parts of the series - 15/02/2012 03:38:37 PM 690 Views
Re: I would agree with you on less structured parts of the series - 16/02/2012 09:41:29 PM 847 Views
That I can agree with - 17/02/2012 05:46:49 AM 906 Views
Re: That I can agree with - 17/02/2012 09:26:50 AM 761 Views
Seriously! The Yellow should be ashamed - 17/02/2012 01:49:07 PM 918 Views
Well to be fair to the Yellow (which generally annoy me as an Ajah)... - 17/02/2012 06:20:06 PM 801 Views
Seems reasonable - 18/02/2012 05:49:40 PM 791 Views
Quote found - 12/02/2012 01:35:58 AM 721 Views
My thoughts - 05/02/2012 10:14:59 PM 963 Views
Re: How did Travelling become a lost Talent? - 13/02/2012 12:24:35 PM 890 Views
a few more other factors - 15/02/2012 08:22:02 PM 756 Views

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