We've had debates about the prevalence and availability of alchemical cures and healing magic on other threads before, leading to a wide range of interpretation as to the medical application of spells like Esuna.
My guess would be that many environmental factors like communicable diseases, it's likely they would be alleviated or even cured by Esuna. Diseases like tetanus and botulism are the result of toxins building up in the body and attacking certain cell types. Even if esuna didn't cure the disease, it would alleviate the buildup of toxins and reduce the severity of symptoms or the likelihood of death.
Other diseases, like viruses, attack cells directly, high-jack the inner workings, and destroy the cell in order to reproduce the virus. If Esuna isn't a cure all for communicable diseases, it would likely have little effect in these cases because toxins aren't the issue. Rather it's loss of cells (like white blood cells in the case of HIV).
When it comes to genetic diseases, that's where I think you'll see the most need. If your stance is that magic helps return the body to homeostatis or its normal function, then genetic diseases would be unaffected because they're hardwired into the patient's biology. Again, this could vary based on the disease (Huntington's and Alzheimer's for example lead to a buildup of toxic proteins in the brain that slowly kills off brain cells leading to impair of function and eventually death). I doubt white magic would have any effect on diseases like cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, androgen insensitivity, or chromosomal disorders like Downs Syndrome or Kleinfelter's.
Also, when it comes to genetic diseases, you have a compounding factor known as "founder effect." The idea here is that when you have a small population moving to a new area and colonizing it, it is likely that for the first few generations you're going to see an over-expression of any recessive disease traits that happened to exist within the small population of colonists. For example, there is a group of Amish in Pennsylvania that is well known for the incidence of polydactyly and dwarfism, because among their founders was someone with the gene for polydactyly and someone with the gene for dwarfism. Consequently, they have the world's highest concentration of six fingered dwarves. Considering that four of the five races in Eorzea are transplants, one would expect founder effect to be prevalent, at least in the smaller communities.
Additional types of medicine I don't feel would be covered by white magic as it is presented: psychology/psychiatry, cosmetic surgery, physical therapy, preventative medicine, obstetrics/midwife, and likely more (I don't know that much about medicine aside from watching House).
Personally, I can see a lot of use for a doctor in Eorzea. White magic generally seems to cover mostly emergency medicine and poison control sorts of issues, possibly infectious disease depending on how technical you wish to get.
I'll clarify a little about founder effect, as reading it over I seem to have described it poorly. Founder effect can occur with any trait, dominant or recessive, disease, benign, or beneficial. It just comes up most often when you talk about the prevalence of genetic diseases. Polydactyly and dwarfism aren't diseases, but they are genetic traits.
My guess would be that many environmental factors like communicable diseases, it's likely they would be alleviated or even cured by Esuna. Diseases like tetanus and botulism are the result of toxins building up in the body and attacking certain cell types. Even if esuna didn't cure the disease, it would alleviate the buildup of toxins and reduce the severity of symptoms or the likelihood of death.
Other diseases, like viruses, attack cells directly, high-jack the inner workings, and destroy the cell in order to reproduce the virus. If Esuna isn't a cure all for communicable diseases, it would likely have little effect in these cases because toxins aren't the issue. Rather it's loss of cells (like white blood cells in the case of HIV).
When it comes to genetic diseases, that's where I think you'll see the most need. If your stance is that magic helps return the body to homeostatis or its normal function, then genetic diseases would be unaffected because they're hardwired into the patient's biology. Again, this could vary based on the disease (Huntington's and Alzheimer's for example lead to a buildup of toxic proteins in the brain that slowly kills off brain cells leading to impair of function and eventually death). I doubt white magic would have any effect on diseases like cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, androgen insensitivity, or chromosomal disorders like Downs Syndrome or Kleinfelter's.
Also, when it comes to genetic diseases, you have a compounding factor known as "founder effect." The idea here is that when you have a small population moving to a new area and colonizing it, it is likely that for the first few generations you're going to see an over-expression of any recessive disease traits that happened to exist within the small population of colonists. For example, there is a group of Amish in Pennsylvania that is well known for the incidence of polydactyly and dwarfism, because among their founders was someone with the gene for polydactyly and someone with the gene for dwarfism. Consequently, they have the world's highest concentration of six fingered dwarves. Considering that four of the five races in Eorzea are transplants, one would expect founder effect to be prevalent, at least in the smaller communities.
Additional types of medicine I don't feel would be covered by white magic as it is presented: psychology/psychiatry, cosmetic surgery, physical therapy, preventative medicine, obstetrics/midwife, and likely more (I don't know that much about medicine aside from watching House).
Personally, I can see a lot of use for a doctor in Eorzea. White magic generally seems to cover mostly emergency medicine and poison control sorts of issues, possibly infectious disease depending on how technical you wish to get.
I'll clarify a little about founder effect, as reading it over I seem to have described it poorly. Founder effect can occur with any trait, dominant or recessive, disease, benign, or beneficial. It just comes up most often when you talk about the prevalence of genetic diseases. Polydactyly and dwarfism aren't diseases, but they are genetic traits.
I'm a tinker! Tinkerer? Hrm.... I'm an artificer! - Myxie Tryxle | Impressions and Memories