In the Muggle world, medicine is practised by highly-trained men and women. They use precise technology and the scalpel to save lives, and though physicians occasionally make house-calls, they work primarily in clinics and hospitals. Very few professionals would resort to herbalism and folklore, for such things have long been dismissed as obsolete and superstitious. In the Wizarding world, medicine is quite the opposite. Technology does not function well in the presence of magic, and so Wizard Healers have perfected their own methods. Unlike the medicine that was practised in the Medieval ages, these remedies truly are effective for Wizards.

Healers follow the belief that the body is composed of four humours - sanguine (blood), choler, phlegm and melancholia. The primary cause of disease is an imbalance in these four humours, each of which are given qualities of heat and moistness. Sanguine is hot and moist, choler is hot and dry, phlegm is cold and moist while melancholia is cold and dry. After the Healer makes his diagnosis, he restores balance by the use of herbal and magical remedies, blood-letting, administering laxatives or magical Charms. Mental illnesses are occasionally seen as a case of possession by a malevolent Dark Creature or the effects of a Curse - such instances require magical rituals to cure the patient. Potions may also be administered as prescriptions.

Basic Muggle techniques are occasionally used, usually only in emergency situations where a Healer cannot access restorative Potions or a wand to cast Charms. However, these are most often reserved for accident victims or those who have been afflicted with non-magical maladies. Muggle techniques would be useless against a man who has been Petrified, for example.

Hospitals in the Wizarding world are also vastly different from those in the Muggle. The most famous establishment in Great Britain, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, resembles a Muggle hospital on the surface with wards and cranky receptionists, but there are no insurance companies, so families must pay the institutions directly. The care of a Healer in a city can be quite expensive, but in rural settings, there is more room for barter and negotiation. It is also quite common, especially in the country, for folk healers and midwives to be called upon instead.

Wondering how long you should RP an injury or hospital stay? Here's a guideline.

1. Broken bones take a single night to heal thanks to the potion skele-gro. The potion regrows bones, but it can be quite painful. A little fracture might take a minute. For a full on broken bone with the bone poking through the flesh it probably takes about 4 hours.

2. There are potions for the common cold and flu; Pepper-Up potion, which makes steam come out of the ears, can usually take care of that in a day. More dangerous diseases that might require more than one night at the hospital are Dragon Pox, Scrofungulus, Vanishing sickness, or Spattergroit.

3. Wound-cleaning potions are used on cuts and other open wounds. It is purple, smokes, and stings. There are also burn healing pastes and bruise healing pastes that take about a minute to work. Murtlap Essence, or Essence of Murtlap, is used for cuts.

4. Blood replenishing potions are good for blood loss and only take a minute or so to work. Unless you are losing blood constantly and the bleeding can't be stopped, one or two of these should suffice.

5. "Permanent spell damage" is more often a cause of need for long term care than routine cuts, burns, and breaks. Bites from magical creatures can demand more intensive care.

6. Mad Eye Moody apparently wore a prosthetic leg, and we know that he wore a false eye. If wizards were able to correct severed limbs by simply regrowing them one would have assumed he'd have undergone that magical therapy; he certainly wasn't using the peg leg as a fashion statement. Therefore we can't simply regrow severed limbs and this should be treated as something serious.

7. Routine battle damage can probably be handled within a span of 1-4 nights at the hospital (2 RL days). More extensive damage or outright magical alteration might take longer and require some intensive trauma RP. Certain Dark curses and magics might require longer stays and more intervention -- but a routine flesh sever, broken bone, or hit with a blunt object, even a wall, shouldn't take very long to deal with at all.