Do you ever lie awake wondering how the heck Gimli knows what a nervous system is
Clearly dwarves have medical knowledge far more advanced than that of the other races.
His Majesty Dr. Gimli, son of Gloin, Neurosurgeon, M.D.
(deep breath apparently I am going to recklessly spin off that one bad line in a film that didn’t even do Gimli right but whatever-)
Well, Dwarves live in a tough world. They suffer wars all the time, and mining is dangerous too. And there’s little evidence that they have any magical healing.
They are good with engineering, mapping, mechanics: from the big (like giant forges) to the minute (magical toys!); and good with chemistry, and lens-making; and of course, they’re good at making and using very sharp blades.
Why not surgery?
And look, Dain Ironfoot has an advanced prosthetic that lets him ride to battle. Not to mention other Dwarrow we glimpse with missing eyes and major scars and hey! An axe wound to the head! Which someone helped them survive.
So I hereby conclude that Dwarven medical skill is a real and effective thing!
Amputations of irreparably-damaged limbs. Effective use of tourniquets and suturing to stop bleeding to death (if they get to you in time sorry Thorin). Investigations of chemistry and mineralogy to find proto-pharmaceuticals to stave off infection.
And Khazad have have the blessing (and curse) of stubbornness. Look at
Óin refusing to leave Kili behind when he is wounded, even being willing to give up the return to Erebor they all have journeyed so far for. “My duty is with my patient!” Stubbornness and loyalty are both good qualities for your physician.The Hobbits live in such a safe culture that their need for medicine might be limited to home remedies, with trauma too rare for them to perfect surgical skill. The Elves can tap ancient magic and lore for healing, besides being immune to many mortal ills. Mankind, well, what learning they have is subject to erosion through frequent destruction and migration of their cultures. Even in Gondor in the Houses of Healing, we see signs that what was once a deeper knowledge has broken down: once-mastered truths fading away into folklore.
But the Dwarves! Trust a Dwarven doctor for steady hands, a sharp scalpel, and inventive solutions to get you back to work after your most recent battle maiming! Or so says Óin to his nephew, many times, when telling the tales of his journeys.
Perhaps, many years later, Óin goes along on the doomed expedition to Moria in the role of their doctor, officially or not. He’s really too old, but poor noble Balin is determined to go, and young Ori, and the others. And Óin can’t let veterans of the Company, his old companions, and other restless souls head off to Khazad-dum without a medic: who will look after them?
In later years (throughout his life), Gimli remembers his long-lost uncle at times– bits and pieces from the kindly old Dwarrow’s explanations about nerves and bones, anatomy and herbs. Sometimes these flash into his head at the oddest moments: like on a battle-field strewn with the disjuncted forms of enemies.
He would have liked to remember Óin in a better way, in a more peaceful moment, after learning for certain that his kinsman’s death (long feared and mourned by Gloin) is a certainty.
But there are no peaceful moments, after the Chamber of Mazarbul and the bridge of Khazad-dum. And he will have nothing from those dark halls to bring home to his father, except an ancient axe, some crumped pages, and the news that his missing uncle died there.
The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes. Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming.
He can only hope that safe in the Halls of Mahal, Óin will find Thorin–and Balin–and Fili and Kili–and Ori–and all those whom the old physician ever looked after, so they may thank him. And so he may rest in a place with no more battlefields, where all wounds are healed.
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIIIIIIIIS