A discussion of

• Purely magical diseases
• Ways in which infections can jump from magical creatures to wizards
• How the magical world controls the spread to muggles
• Why the magical world doesn't use modern medical techniques

In the previous essay I discussed how diseases contributes to the high death rate in the wizarding world and how the magical world ( Read more... )

High death rates in pre-industrialised countries reflect a large disease burden. Mostly this disease burden is due to infectious diseases that are endemic and also circulated as frequent, regular epidemics. With modern medical care, developed nations like Britain have managed to cut both the disease burden and death rate from infectious diseases ( Read more... )

One of the most important trappings of wizardry is a wand. A witch or wizard’s wand seems to be a physical representation of their innate magical ability. And, going over the facts JK has given us and my own twisted view of the Potterverse, I’ve come up with some conclusions about Harry’s wand.

x-posted from my lj:
Wands and Wizards

With no little trepidation, and in the midst of the essay-a-thon (with luck, I can use that as camouflage, and slip past unnoticed), I post herewith my maiden contribution. It is based upon the The FA Version of this essay, as revised to take into account all the points made there by commenters much more clever than am I.

An Augurey Sang in ( Read more... )

A lot of speculation and discussion has considered the implications of the Statute of Secrecy and resulting separation of the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. The essay linked below is my attempt to understand just how much this separation may have affected technological progress in the Wizarding World.

Muggle and Wizard technology after the Statute ( Read more... )

I've been reading several comments out across LJ that people don't like ( several Muggle artifacts that show up at Hogwarts in the movie )

The question of whether memories in a Pensieve are subjective or objective has been bothering me for quite a while, but this morning I had an epiphany, and this theory (along with the Muggle-technology analogy) popped into my head. I hope no one objects to me blathering on about it in public ( Read more... )