Elvish Medicine?

[Kalimac]

Just another minor consideration - the Elves are generally acknowledged to be very good at healing and medicine and so forth (for example, Elrond curing Frodo of his Weathertop wound, or at least ameliorating it if not fully curing it). In the movie Aragorn calls it "Elvish medicine" but I cannot remember for sure whether that particular phrase was in the books or not. Anyway, did the Elves use straight-up medicines or did they effect their cures more spiritually? (Healing the soul, and the body with it - something like that). The reason I'm asking is that since Elves are made for immortality and do not get sick nor die of anything except violence and "declining" - which isn't really a germ-carried illness - why would they develop medicines or cures for illnesses which they never got?

One possibility I thought of was that it may have started when Elves and Men were allied; since men could be wounded and die of illnesses and infections, the Elves might have decided to take advantage of their thousands of years of personal experience with studying herbology and so forth to develop some cures for their friends. This seems a little lacking for some reason, though. Does anyone have any ideas? (Or maybe a passage in Tolkien's writings that I haven't spotted yet? [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]). Thank you!

[Lomelinde]

Good point. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] The elves probably did develop medicine for healing wounds, seeing as they also could succumb to violence, but since elves were so much more spiritual minded and in tune with the metaphysical than men, they probably leaned toward healing the soul in other instances. Even though elves never got sick, they most likely used their knowledge of herbs, as was mentioned, to help men when they came on the scene later. So I think it was a mixture of all those things you mentioned. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[QuickSlash]

I think you're right. Their knowledge of various plants qould make them good healers, and a lot of it was probably done for the soul, like the Lembas. They were more for the mind than the body, I think.
Hey, could it be called "magic" or "elven magic"? I'm not sure if they said it in the books or if I just heard someone say it. I think someone else referred to it like that. I'm curious. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Nar]

Luthien and Huan, hound of Valinor, use elvish medicine -- not to mention elf-dog medicine -- to save Beren --the following is from the long poem The Lay of Lethian in The Lays of Beleriand, HoME 3

Then Huan came and bore a leaf,/of all the herbs of healing chief,/ ... with broad and hoary blade./ ... The powers of all grasses Huan knew/ ... while Luthien murmuring in the shade/ the staunching song, that Elvish wives/ long years had sung in those sad lives/ of war and weapons, wove o'er him.