[sigpig]

There's been a thought tickling the back of my mind for some reason. It's concerning the health of people, mostly soldiers, in Wu.
From the number of camp followers, prostitution, and general Iron Age health, one would think that armies would fall victim to the common diseases of cholera, STIs, dysentry, influenza, etc - not to mention trenchfoot, frostbite, and the like. Do these diseases simply not exist in Wu, does Poliel only deal in large-scale plagues, does Soliel keep her sister in check, are the Denul adepts treat these things as a matter of course?
Just some things to think about while waiting for the next book(s)...

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

I've been wondering the same thing myself, though I do recall several instances of characters checking for any minor cuts in their bodies out of concern that said minor wound might become infected.

[Abyss]

There are minor refs throughout the series to basic health and hygiene practices, non-adept medics, local midwives/witchdoctors/healers etc. It's there, it's just not a big part of the worldbuilding.

[LinearPhilosopher]

I think STIs may have had passing references.

That being said unless you are writing a fantasy series revolving around medical practices I don't think you're going to get more than passing references as it's not the focus of the book.

Also if your army has denul healers, maybe they can easily take care of basic infections or common conditions like dysentery.

This post has been edited by LinearPhilosopher: 01 March 2024 - 10:13 PM

[Tsundoku]

LinearPhilosopher, on 01 March 2024 - 10:12 PM, said:

I think STIs may have had passing references.

That being said unless you are writing a fantasy series revolving around medical practices I don't think you're going to get more than passing references as it's not the focus of the book.

Also if your army has denul healers, maybe they can easily take care of basic infections or common conditions like dysentery.

I just keep thinking of D&D with "lay on hands" ...

[LinearPhilosopher]

Hey there big paladin man, care to lay on some hands?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

LinearPhilosopher, on 28 March 2024 - 01:06 PM, said:

Hey there big paladin man, care to lay on some hands?

Quote

I dig my fingers in, expecting more than just the skin

[Audio possibly NSFW: ]

Nothing Matters - 10 seconds in

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 28 March 2024 - 02:47 PM

[the broken]

My bet would be that the commanders have dedicated healers for that, for the ranks it depends if their squad mage has time. If you ask Mallet nicely when you're camped sometime he might help, but if there's a big battle and he has 3,000 injuries to deal with you're on your own.

[Gorefest]

Plus magic in the Malazan universe isn't free, it always comes at a price.

[Jade Raven]

Coincidentally just read an old interview where Erikson touches on this: he sees children as pretty much always surviving to adulthood, from a healthcare perspective at least.

Quote

SE: The other thing of course was that we wanted to create a world without sexism. So we asked ourselves: “Well how can you… what would happen if magic actually worked? And then what would happen if we define magic and the acquisition of magic as egalitarian as something that anyone can achieve with sufficient discipline and determination?” Once we thought, OK that is the premise of magic, then any gender based on hierarchy of power cannot survive. It would never rise in the first place. Because you could not make your claim to power exclusive of either gender or skin color or culture or anything. So that kind of changes how people interact with each other and it changes the roles of gender as well, because if a woman needs only produce one or two children and be very confident both will survive to adulthood, they do not have to be the medieval baby factories that they once were. You know, when they had to produce ten children in the hope that two survive. They could produce two children, or one, and then get on with their lives. And that opens up for them any opportunity they choose. So it is a very different world. But having decided this, we faced the same problem. We were not going to have some farm boy come into the world and have a wizard explain to him that men and women are equal, right? We could not signpost any of this. So it is there, but it is not explicit, it is implicit. And many readers never caught it. They never noticed. They never noticed that it was a world without sexism. They never noticed that it was a world where pink skinned people are the minority, which is our world as well. But you know, that’s how it goes.

https://mf.hypotheses.org/1388