Dragon Healing
by Katt

Dragon Healing: The term used for the care of a dragon. Every rider therefore is also a healer since all riders must know basic care of their dragon in order to keep that dragon healthy. These are pages to extend that knowledge for those who role play a person specialized in the healing craft. Please keep in mind that even in present day Pern, most of the internal workings of dragons are unknown to In Character play. This is due to the fact that terminally injured or ill dragons go between or are escorted between. Humans have never and will never be able to 'dissect' a dragon to know for sure what they can assume from similar life forms on Pern. Also the majority of this information is derived from the books by Mrs. McCaffrey, DLG or one of two web sites and all information is accredited to them. All of which can be used as extra reading should the info you need not be here. http://www.silvertree.org/~romany/dragonhealing/ and http://www.geocities.com/jenaith/genetics.html . And seeing as Mountain Song is on an alternate timeline in the 14th pass of Pern, there are some small changes of idea and theories. Alot of dragon anatomy, genetics, and make-up is left to the imagination of the reader.

Intro: The care and well being of dragons obviously dates back to the creation of dragons. Then it was a touch and go thing. They only knew what worked well for fire lizard care and assumed it was much the same for a dragon, just on a larger scale. And they were, for the most part, right. It was also quickly assumed that the Weyrs would be responsible for the upkeep and care of it's residents. The pioneers who settled Pern had a lot to do to make the place home. At first it was hard to even spare enough empathically inclined people for Hatchings. But the first Pass quickly faded into memory. By which time the population was well under way in a growth spurt and many present day traditions were being set into place.

The craft of Dragon Healing was never really thought of as such at first. For the longest of time it wasn't a sub hall to either human healing or beast healing (which is a sub hall of the beastcrafters). And it wasn't completely considered a craft because it was no set Main Hall. There was no one place in which people apply apprenticeship to and were trained. This stemmed from the quick comings and goings of Passes and the length of Intervals. As Pern's technological abilities decreased, so did their forms of record keeping till most knowledge was learned in practice and word of mouth. Which gave time a chance to destroy much needed information. And Dragon Healing suffered this effect the most because each Weyr trained it's own healers and stayed anatomically separated from other Weyrs. As one Master died, there were always things he forgot to pass on. During Intervals this was at it's worst. Two hundred turns of not having Thread ate at the practice of caring for the disastrous results of it. The surgical techniques, general aid and care of, the mental healing and stabilizing of dragons who suffered thread score is lost and regained in each and every Pass. 

After 9 Passes and Falls of such destruction of ways and information, everyone on Pern eventually set to the opinion that this could never happen again. Pern was almost lost to such ideas as 'craft and hold secrets'. New training systems were set up by the tenth pass, ways for records retaining and information passing on were updated and the single mindedness that almost led to Pern's destruction was changed. Thus the formation of a more stable Dragon Healing could be formed. Each Weyr started to cooperate and set up a structured learning environment for which to train it's dragon healers. They struggled to do so till about the 12th pass when the main human Healer Hall at Fort opted to take control of the craft as a whole. This provided a beginning point for all training into the craft. It helped form a more stable craft structure because there was now a focal point at which all knowledge could be gleaned instead of asking each Weyrs' masters. As technology progressed, advances were made in many of the fields of study within the practice of Dragon Healing. Life saving surgeries were improved upon as well as a number new ones learned. More medicines to treat the rare dragon kind sicknesses. At the end of the 13th interval, the capabilities of the average dragonhealer far out passed many of the masters of turns before them.