Medical Plots 101 (Marina)

You know what I love?

If your answer was “white hot chocolate”, you’re right, but that’s not really what I was getting at. I was going to say “medical plots”.

I’ve never actually checked, but I think I have the highest ratio of long-term medical plots to characters of any existing author. One-third of my six RMI characters have had ongoing medical issues; both characters are graduated now, but Tripp Lemont had acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Keith Blackburn has Type I Diabetes. Lia Harper hasn’t had ongoing medical issues, but she was in a car accident once and I had to invent magical medical stuff for that. I also wrote the medic for a few terms at another RPG site.

Personally, medical plots are my favorite. It’s definitely a break from family/relationship drama that constitutes usual character plots, and it doesn’t have to rely on other people unless you want it to- so your whole storyline doesn’t get messed up if an author vanishes. It also means that you have to do research, which can get really interesting and be useful. Thanks to Keith, I already knew a lot about endocrinology when I studied it in high school; thanks to Tripp, I knew a lot about the immune system.

The high number of medical issues in my characters makes a lot of sense when you consider that I’m a neuroscience major on a pre-med track. (In fact, Keith and I are- completely coincidentally, I assure you- studying the same thing.) It also means that with Julia writing the medic, Austin having a spectacular knowledge of chemistry, and myself having a good idea of physiology, we form a semi-authoritative trio on the limits of magical medicine.

Illnesses

• Wizards have a cure for the common cold. It’s called Pepperup Potion and it makes steam come out of your ears. Students at RMI can probably just get it from the medic, if not buy it themselves.
• Bacteria: This is pretty much the same as in the Muggle world. Potions (instead of drugs) can kill bacteria, unless the bacteria is in the brain/spinal cord (as it is with diseases like bacterial meningitis).
• Viruses: see Bacteria above.
• Disease prevention: Wizards probably have something a little less invasive than immunization shots. More likely, they’re going to be potions.
• Magical illnesses totally exist! You’re probably going to have to make up some of the symptoms/diseases/treatments, but that’s totally encouraged as long as you have a reason and don’t make it some random jungle virus. Just remember that if you’re going to send your character to the medic about it, hop on the Chatzy and let Julia know what you’re trying to do. Writing the medic really sucks if you don’t know what’s supposed to be wrong with the person you’re trying to treat.

Common Injuries

• Broken bones. Healers have a number of ways of dealing with these. Students are unlikely to know these spells until 5th year or so.
• Episkey sets and Heals minor broken bones.
• Resarcio heals cracks/fractures in bones.
• Skele-Gro grows bone that is missing (hence the name). I’ve also used it in the past as a means of mending bones that have been set properly. It is not instantaneous and is quite uncomfortable, so a regular Healer would not use it unless s/he had to.
• Bleeding. Students probably will not be able to perform these spells until third year or so.
• Amplio heals minor cuts/scrapes/bruises. If your character cuts himself while shaving or scraps her knee on the floor of the Rec Center, this is the kind of spell that’ll fix it.
• Tergeo siphons up liquids. Like blood. Don’t let your character’s nosebleed ruin his/her favorite shirt!
• Burns. Students will probably be able to pull off these spells around their fourth year.
• First-degree: the spell Redintegro Exuro.
• Second-degree: Redintegro Exuro or a burn-healing salve.
• Third-degree: Redintegro Exuro will help the skin heal over, but healing the burn will require some kind of potion or salve.

What about scars?
Unlikely. Dittany prevents scarring (see Half-Blood Prince, when Harry uses Sectumsempra on Draco), so the only reason you’re going to have a scar is if the wound was magical in nature (e.g. from a werewolf or, y’know, the Killing Curse). Magical wounds are also unlikely to happen, but I’ll give you an out- a chemical burn from a potion, which is more likely than random werewolf attacks, might cause scarring if it’s not treated properly/immediately, depending on what kind of potion it was.

What about uncommon injuries?
I can’t go through every unlikely event like your character accidentally swallowing a toothbrush! Wizards are pretty good at speeding up the healing process if there’s internal organ damage, though.

Cancer & Tumors
I think I’m the first person to use blood cancer as an issue for a wizard [citation needed], but I know that Kat Eagle’s author had a character with a brain tumor once. The general consensus we came to (since her character was not an invalid) was that magical medicine rocks at removing (noncancerous) tumors but is not so great at treating cancerous cells. Magical medicine is very good at managing the symptoms, but not the cancer itself. I’m pretty sure this makes sense in-character, because it would be kind of a jerk move for the entire wizarding world to not share “ability to destroy cancer” with Muggles. I’ve established that currently, the wizarding world is working on magical treatments for cancer, and that the best option for a wizard for the time being is Muggle medicine in conjunction with some of the experimental magical treatments.

Surgery?
Kind of. They do surgery and sometimes need to make incisions to access internal injuries/tumors/whatever, but it’s a little different than it is for Muggles. What they do once they’re in there is anyone’s guess- my thought is that it probably involves extremely complicated charms- but here are the things I can think of.

• Incision: Incidere creates an incision; renovo heals it.
• Anesthesia?: Yes. Facio torpeo is a spell for local anesthesia and torpeo is for general anesthesia.
• Transplants?: There’s a spell for that. Integro helps the body receive transplants.
• Recovery time: Since magic can Heal incisions (without even leaving scars), recovery time is a lot faster than it is for Muggles.

Eyesight
This isn’t really a huge medical issue, but I’ve noticed that there’s a dearth of people with glasses/contacts at RMI. However, if you’ll recall from the title character of the book having to wear glasses, wizards in Harry Potter apparently can’t do a thing to fix myopia (near-sightedness). It seems to me that if they could do something about it, Harry (the savior of the wizarding world) would be a good candidate for some magical laser-eye surgery. So it looks like there’s nothing wizards can do about that.

That said, other eye problems (like glaucoma) can be treated with spell/potion combinations. Invent these at your leisure, but remember that only a professional would be able to perform them.

Teeth
Teeth gross me out so I’m not spending a lot of time here. Wizards use magic instead of braces. See Goblet of Fire, Hermione’s teeth, for further explanation. My guess is that wisdom teeth removal would also be fairly easy for wizards. Root canals? I don’t know; this is the part where I start to get goosebumps. Let’s move on to something I know stuff about. Like...

Brain/Nerve Injuries
If I’ve learned anything so far as a neuroscience student, it’s “don’t get your brain all messed up, because that can kind of make catastrophes”. As far as has been established, magical medicine can’t do very much for brain injuries that time and Muggle remedies can’t do.

• Strokes.
• There are two kinds of stroke: hemorrhagic and ischemic. Hemorrhagic is when a blood vessel bursts and blood gets all over your brain. Ischemic is when a blood clot or vessel detachment prevents oxygen from getting to a part of your brain.
• Brain damage is really hard to fix, but we basically have established that magical medicine can help restore pre-damage physical functioning (speech and motion).
• Wizards can quickly treat the immediate cause of a stroke (by bursting the clot or repairing the damaged vessel), but any underlying cause of the stroke would need further treatment.
• For more information, ask Austin, who writes Rob Jacobs- a badass stroke victim who has the only wheelchair and the only dog in the school.
• Nerve Damage.
• Based on the assumption that wizards are not Dr. Frankenstein and cannot reanimate dead neurons, ability to Heal nerve damage is similar to that of Muggles.
• After long periods of time, Muggles can regain functions of damaged nerves. Potions can probably speed this recovery process but cannot entirely Heal nerves.

Genetic Disorders
This is especially a concern if you have purebloods, because of the whole inbreeding thing.

• Disorders that involve inheritance like hemophilia would be a likely result of inbreeding.
• Disorders that involve chromosome deletion/abnormality like Angelman Syndrome have the same likelihood as they do in the Muggle world.
• Therapies (physical or mental) in the wizarding world are likely on or above par with those of the Muggle world in terms of coping mechanisms and management by drug treatments.
• Magic does not get rid of chronic genetic disorders. Ever. Period. It can treat them or treat the symptoms, but every chromosome in the body doesn’t get magically fixed.

Pregnancy (please do not use this as a plot. This is just for background information. Teenage pregnancy is not rated PG and if you try to use this as a plot you’re not even allowed to post about it on the main site, which just plain sucks.)
I’ve assumed the existence of contraceptive charms and potions, as far as magical birth control goes. As far as detection, I generally assume that there’s a charm form of pregnancy test. I don’t think wizards have ultrasounds, but my assumption would be that there’s a charm that can detect the baby’s gender earlier than an ultrasound could.

According to Austin’s epic chemistry knowledge, due to the compounds involved, there aren’t a lot of painkillers a pregnant woman can take, magic or not.

Age
This isn’t 100% medical, but we don’t really know the lifespan of wizards (mostly because everyone who died in canon died of war-related injuries. We do know that Dumbledore lived to be over 150 years old. Since he was not a wrinkly, withered senior, we can also assume that wizards age more slowly than Muggles. They’re also presumably more likely to live longer and healthier lives, and only die due to accident or illness (i.e. Draco Malfoy’s grandfather died of dragonpox).

Diabetes
Okay, this is my favorite, so I just had to say something about it.

• Type I
• Type I Diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to produce insulin.
• Diabetes isn’t especially common in wizards, so the research is limited.
• A few attempts at a potion substitute for insulin shots have been made, but encounter the same problems that orally-administered insulin faces in the Muggle world.
• For more on this, talk to me. I think I may have cornered the market on wizarding Type I Diabetes [citation needed].
• Type II
• Type II Diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to absorb/process insulin.
• Because Type II diabetics are not insulin-dependent, wizards can manage Type II with a bi-yearly potion that enables their body to more easily process insulin.
• For more on this, talk to Milo Sarkes’ author, who writes a character with Type II Diabetes.

That just about wraps up the major categories that I came up with. If you have more questions, feel free to ask me in Chatzy or use our spiffy Contact the Heads! form, and maybe I’ll do another blog post to cover it.

Cheers!
Marina