Al'terra (Medicine)

## Medical Theory

Current understanding of disease is that there are contagious and non-contagious sorts of diseases, currently attributed aura and energy (absence of understanding about microbes due to level of tech). People are fairly good at telling when someone's **energy is off** - meaning sickness. Energy and aura has to be rebalanced through a combination of spiritual encounter, physical remedy, and rarely - 'Righting' which has to do with sorting out liquids in the body (blood, puss, water, saliva, urine etc). Allergies, although uncommon, area almost always tied to food and are treated as confusing, and it also called an avoidance.

Mental disorders are considered just as medically valid and physical energy imbalances, or even spiritual ones. Therefore they also prescribe medicines for mental health as well. Done this way, there are no 'illegal' drugs in Al'terra! Any substance considered dangerous is pulled from the market as a whole. Mental health, in terms of common ailments, is perhaps the most common and the most self-medicated outside the profession.

## Medical Practitioners

Different physicians and doctors (words are used interchangably) have different ideas about what works, as there is no 'universal'. Doctors work as on-call advisors, sellers of remedies (sometimes, other times they recommend a particular seller), and sharing knowledge. Because medicine doesn't work 100% in every situation, the wisdom of doctors is not yet completely trusted and many people self medicate before - if ever - turning to a professional. There is the conflicting spiritual opinion which has become less important with the pushing aside of religion. Medical personal mark themselves with a white sash tied at their waist and the scent of lavender.

While doctors do need to be paid, medicine is subsidized by the government to make it more accessible.

Medicine is treated as a 5th thing on the to-do list regular every day transaction, but aren't very willing to go on a whole.

## Helmt

While there are no such things as hospitals, there is a local 'facility' not to the standard of a clinic, but does have a medical professional on rotation. This place used to be called a 'Help and meet' which is now 'Helmt' They work shifts and deal with medical emergencies. If you want one particular medically trained person, you have to visit where they do business specifically. For emergencies, the doctor will leave an apprentice behind and follow a runner, say if someone had broken a leg in the street.

## History

In the last hundred years, there has been a medical journal of basic instructions and remedies that is kept by all doctors, and all people who have need of it in a house, that had been revised several times - the current version is the Energy Guide, about 50 pages and accessible to the common person. Still, doctor's themselves have their own preferences and ways of doing things.

On a whole, medicine is perhaps most respected and best studied in the military, as it is more stringent and regulated, and therefore is studied better.

In recent times, medicine and medical practises are more accepted than they used to be when religion spoke against them.

At the turning point of the academy, doctors and physicians across Al'terra to write 'the Physician's Field Guide' as to be a standard practice of recommendations, sacred to Al'terra though it is written at the depth of the Grey's Anatomy and is, itself, a tome, that no one expected to understand though many will read,

## Remedies

Hackspice although used for other things, is a anti-riot product. Cellmonin, Rootmint, Crawling Vine, Mose, Oaknut, Aster Remedy, Sandfollow are all herbs used in medicine - Casal is the leaf that Kite and Timethy use to cure Rob out of the dragga poison. Ghostwhisper is a non-legal drug Kite finds with the alcohol. Lion's Bane is a herb used to numb the mouth at least then the mind, with side effects of thirst, muscle fatigue, paranoia, and hallucinations and is used as a last resort. For other herbs, see Herbs in Religion. Besides these treatments, intimacy in various forms is considered a treatment, as well as reading, mentorship, phrenology, a form of reiki about balancing energies within the body, animal therapy, and crystal healing.

Worth noting that with the written exception of Laura, the Gift isn't known to be useful in medicine, and Fvi has not been successful shaped to that. Healing is considered too complex for magic.

## Major Epidemics and Pandemics

Spring Cough – common, kills hundreds every year.As it is a virus and mutates, not much can be done to prevent it.

Wailing fever – a sickness characterized by a simple but hot fever and vivid, always negative, hallucinations (hence the naming ‘wailing’)

Sage Hands - A common skin conditions picked up from working in the fields or with plant material and not washing - without washing, it is also transmitted to other parts of the body.

Summer rage - One of the most feared sicknesses in Al'terra, striking every summer and devastating thousands - it is thought to come from tainted water supplies. It presents as part personality disorder - bouts of red-blind rage - increasing fever, and repetitive behaviours. Common consensus is that if caught early, it can be purged from the body with a reteaching of patterns, a combination of herbs called Etherlia Wisteria, Ivoryheart, and Galgalen. Survival is about 60%, making it one of the worse recurrent killers in Al'terra.

Major epidemics of the past include Argocelis from Galeez which devastated the West, Rosen which had harsh affects only in infants, Tellocelis which has been successfully combatted with appropriate herbs and beaten, and the famous White Fatal which nearly killed an entire generation some thousand years ago. it hasn't returned but people still speak in fear over it.