WHAT IS MAGICAL HEALING?

In the Harry Potter books, frequent mention is made of the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, who cures Harry, Ron and Hermione of the injuries they suffer on their adventures, from regrowing Harry's arm bones and mending Ron's broken leg and dragon-bitten hand, to curing Hermione of her tail and furry face.
Like muggle doctors, magical Healers evidently need a vast base of knowledge and experience to treat their patients. Ron demonstrates this in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix':

"'Well, I don't fancy Healing,' said Ron on the last evening of the holidays. He was immersed in a leaflet that carried the crossed bone-and-wand emblem of St Mungo's on its front. 'It says here you need at least "E" at NEWT level in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. I mean...blimey...don't want much, do they?'
'Well, it's a very responsible job, isn't it?' said Hermione absently."
(p578 UK Hardback children's edition.)

We begin to learn more in OotP about a Healer's responsibilities and how a magical Healer compares with a muggle doctor:

"Witches and wizards in lime-green robes were walking up and down the rows, asking questions and making notes on clipboards like Umbridge's. Harry noticed the emblem embroidered on their chests: a wand and bone, crossed.
'Are they doctors?' he asked Ron quietly.
'Doctors?' said Ron, looking startled. 'Those muggle nutters that cut people up? Nah, they're Healers.'"
(p428 UK Hardback children's edition)

St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, concealed behind a dilapidated shop window in London, deals with

"Artefact Accidents - cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes etc
Creature-Induced Injuries - bites, stings, burns, embedded spines etc
Magical Bugs - contagious maladies eg dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrofungulus etc
Potion & Plant Poisoning - rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable giggling etc
Spell Damage - Unliftable jinxes, hexes, incorrectly applied charms etc"
(p429 UK Hardback children's edition)

That's quite a range of things for a Healer to have to be able to deal with, so we can see why all those NEWTs are required to become a trainee Healer! We'll have a brief look here at each NEWT subject and discuss why these subjects in particular are useful for an intending Healer to study.

POTIONS
A good knowledge of potions is essential - treatments for many magical ailments come in the form of potions. We hear about Pepperup Potion for colds, Skele-Gro for regrowing bones, a blood-replenishing potion, Wolfsbane Potion for controlling a werewolf's symptoms, and many more.

A Healer must also have knowledge of the effects caused by harmful potions or potion overdose. If an incorrectly made potion is drunk, it can produce magical illness, as can the wrong dose of a potion, and Healers must be able to recognise and treat these.

Uncommonly, potions may be used by Dark wizards or witches to deliberately harm others, so Healers must recognise the effects of illegal and dangerous potions. We know that Harry has studied antidotes to poisons, and this would be a useful thing for a Healer to know about.

HERBOLOGY
A Healer must study Herbology because many plants have medicinal properties and can be used in the making of magical remedies. For example, wolfsbane (also known as monkshood or aconite) is used in the wolfsbane potion to prevent a werewolf from harming him/herself or others during the monthly transformation.

Some magical plants may, however, cause harm. It is vital for a healer to be able to recognise the hysteria caused by eating Alihotsy leaves, or the bite marks caused by an angry fanged geranium.

TRANSFIGURATION
Knowledge of the uses and effects of transfiguration are very important in Healing. Incomplete transfiguration of a person into an animal or an inanimate object may occur by accident or on purpose, or complete transfiguration may leave the affected witch or wizard unable to reverse the spell themselves. Transfiguration is a dangerous and powerful branch of magic, as we all know, so untransfiguration of people is often best left to a qualified and experienced Healer, although a complete cure or indeed any cure at all may not be possible, depending on the extent of the damage. For instance, it is possible that Agnes, a witch we met briefly in the Closed Ward, who has a furry dog's face, and can only bark instead of speaking, was a victim of a transfiguration accident, although similar effects can be produced from PolyJuice Potion.

CHARMS
Wand charms can backfire or go wrong, causing unfortunate effects, and charms can also be used as jinxes - an uncountered tickling charm can become extremely uncomfortable after a certain length of time, as can 'densaugeo' - the charm that Draco Malfoy used to make Hermione's teeth grow in length. we've also heard of Pansy Parkinson sprouting antlers, and students ending up in the hospital wing with leks sprouting out of their ears, both of which could be attributed to jinxes or misapplied charms. Charmed objects can also cause severe damage - witness nose-biting teacups, biting doorknobs, shoes jinxed to strangle feet, and so on. A Healer must know a wide range of counter-charms and counter-jinxes to prevent further damage occurring from these mishaps.

Charms can also be medicinal, for example a Cheering charm can help to lift prolonged sadness or depression, and many counter-charms exist to remove the effects of charms gone wrong.

DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS
As mentioned previously, potions may be used by practitioners of the Dark Arts, but in addition to potions, practically any form of magic may be turned to serve those seeking to injure, or even to kill others. Potions and plants may be used to poison, charms and transfiguration to permanently change or incapacitate the victim, and hexes or curses to injure or kill. A Healer must be able to recognise a patient affected by Dark Magic, and know how to treat them if possible.

In short, a Healer must have a thorough knowledge of most, if not all, ways in which magic can bring harm to a person, and the equally numerous ways in which it can help to make people well. from what we are told in the books, magical remedies in the Harry Potter world are amazingly effective, able to heal cuts and broken bones in a matter of minutes, where the natural healing process would take weeks or months. So we are very unlikely to see a witch or wizard hobbling around on crutches or with stitched wounds, although Arthur Weasley tried stitches to help his snake-bite wound heal in OotP, and was, on their failure to work, subsequently berated by his wife for messing around with 'complementary medicine'. (We also see in the film of PoA Hermione with stitches on her cheek: Madam Pomfrey should have been able to heal the cut outright instead of stitching it, but I suppose she needed to look injured, so we'll let Alfonso Cuaron off with it this time...)

Despite the amazing results produced by magical Healing, it too, like Muggle medicine, has its limits - severe injuries and illnesses cannot always be cured. For example, Alastor Moody is missing an eye, a leg, and half of his nose. Frank and Alice Longbottom suffered so badly at the hands of the Death Eaters that nothing can be done to improve their conditions. It seems that the more powerful and potent the magic used to harm, the harder it is to counteract.

WIZARDING ANATOMY AND MUGGLE AILMENTS
The gross anatomy of a witch or wizard is exctly the same as that of a muggle, as would be expected - both types of person are human, after all. However, when we get to the molecular level, the most immediate level for the actions of DNA, the story becomes quite different.

Witches and wizards, having evolved to make full use of the genes for magical ability, have also evolved to be more resistant to injuries and illnesses than muggles. If this were not so, the wizarding population would be almost nonexistent today, given the wide range of extra hazards a witch or wizard encounters in everyday life.

Specific adaptations of the wizarding anatomy seem to be greater resilience of the tissues - falls, collisions and other injuries, while often resulting in broken bones, never seem as bad as they should, in proportion to the accident. Sometimes, a witch or wizard, having been in a very serious accident indeed, escapes with no more than a broken nose or wrist, or cuts and bruises.

Also, the tissues of witches and wizards are capable of astonishing regeneration in response to magical stimulation - when injured, the bones, muscle and skin of a witch or wizard can be prompted, with the use of magic, to accelerate their gradual repair process, to the extent where healing can be almost instantaneous.

However, since the body must always follow the 'natural' healing process, however accelerated, this magical healing capacity is not infinite - witches and wizards still form scars, even if their injury was healed magically. The magical body cannot replace lost parts - eyes, legs, noses - once gone, they are gone forever.

Despite their 'superhuman' attributes, the magical population still falls prey to muggle illnesses. The wizard's immune system is no different to the muggle's, except in that it also, like the other body tissues, can be prompted to accelerate its workings by magical means. In this way, witches and wizards afflicted with muggle ailments like the common cold, toothache, earache, and other minor infections, can be healed much more rapidly than a muggle could ever hope for.