The Alchemy Of Healing- Are We All Harry Potters?

Pharmacology vs the phantasmagorical potions of the Potter world.
The stories we love best do live in us forever.”
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

As an awkward, bespectacled teenager who grew up in the late nineties in a one- bedroom-
house in the Mumbai suburbs, one of my precious memories is curling up a 3′ X 3′ feet nook tucked between an ancient sofa and a pastel lavender painted wall. With a stack of burrowed books perched on one lap, a steel glass of ‘Aam panna’ perched precariously on the other, my ability to latibulate in the wonderland of Alice, in the closets of Narnia, in the library-lent tomes of Grimm ́s fairy tales and the Tinkle magazines was legendary. Back then nothing, and mean ‘nothing’ compared to the sweet anticipation of (finally) laying hands on a pre-read, heavily wait-listed copy of a book, gently straightening out its dog eared pages, savoring the sweet booky smell, before diving into the fantasy filled, unattainable world of escapism.

It was once upon a summer of 2000.

A wary twelve-year-old me was looking at a listless summer vacation, having already reread the entire library fantasy section, and was about to develop a bad case of a book hangover, when the Aunty from the library rescued me from a potential knee deep melancholia (my fairy godmother!). She handed over her personal copy of a tome with the picture of a lanky boy and a huge snake in an embossed print.

An ardent bibliophile herself, she said, `I know what you are going through, and I think this will help!`

The book was ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of secrets.’

The rest is a delusional, fairytalesque, fantasy you will come to read shortly.

Now that I look back, my interest in chemistry, medicine and pharmacology stemmed from the magical world of Harry Potter and the eventual parallels I drew in my life. (I call it my coping mechanism!)

‘Who possess, the predisposition… I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.`

Such is the power of words, that I remember scribbling this very dialogue on the first page of my copy of the pharmacology text book (Satoskar) for inspiration! Snape was my ideal potions Guru! (And let ́s not delve into why I found an abusive, cruel teacher fascinating!).

Since I couldn’t wave magic wands (effectively), since I could not ride a broomstick (severe motion sickness, you see!), and nor could I transfigure into a ceshire cat , I decided that the closest a 16 year old muggle me came to potions and healing magicks is studying medicine. Thus started my love affair with physiology, then pharmacology (I ardently loved the subject) and later medicine. (Take notes Freud!)

The more (and more) I gobbled the series, the more parallels I could draw between the hoggy warty Hogwarts and Harrison’s which made my MBBS course a lot more approachable (and less daunting!)

Exempli gratia – Imagine a room full of parents sitting at the bedside waiting for the inevitable death of their child. The scientists Banting and Best went from bed to bed and injected the children with the new purified extract – insulin. As they began to inject the last comatose child, the first child injected began to awaken. Then one by one, all the children awoke from their diabetic comas. A room of death and gloom became a place of joy and hope. (They literally put a stopper to death).

This is such a perfect happy ending. A scientific approach fortified by human perseverance, tenacity and a sprinkle of serendipity usurped every sorcery in Harry Potter. This is one of the most dramatic moments in the history of human medicine, superseding Madam Pomprey’s best ‘Mandrake restorative draughts ́ by miles.

Let us discuss the ‘The wolfsbane Potion` which transforms the dangerous werewolves into docile creatures! Hallo Haloperidol! (During my brief sting in Psychiatry in Germany, I have been around many patients of psychosis and Schizophrenia, and yes, Haloperidol and its evolved brother Quetiapine will give the Wolfsbane Potion a run for its money any day, effect wise and taste wise!). And our Electroconvulsive Therapy is better than whatever the healers do at St. Mungos to heal those with deadly curses. Imagine being able to send slivers of electrons in a perfect synchrony and amplitude, being able direct it at a peanut shaped part in the brain, which itself is nested inside the Nature’s Fort Knox called the blood brain barrier. This army of electron successfully unlocks the Neurotransmitters of happiness, at one click!! Which wand of Ollivander is capable of such feat?

Now the blood replenishing portion? ‘How about the OG blood transfusions, that are even
more lugubrious and macabre, and effective!!

Then there was a Dr Ubbly ́s obvious Unction to cure bad thoughts and memories inflicted by the ‘brains in the department of mysteries?’ – My diagnosis -the post traumatic disorder – We have an arsenal of Benzodiazepines at our disposal!

As another gothic quote by Snape goes `The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.’

Every Covid-19 warrior faced this nightmare, before science successfully managed to find a vaccine for every fatal Covid-19 strain. The true harbingers of hope and health, there shines no brighter patronus against the Azkaban that was the Covid Pandemic and the lockdown!

Though there exists no perfect equivalent to anesthesia in the magical world, the Sleeping Draught would be the most comparable potion! I bet, that it is any day a better alternative to being confined in St Mungo’s after being inflicted by a wicked Cruciatus curse!

The sutures, which work so well for us, are a total no-no for the magicks! That a bit sad no? But I am pretty sure we all bond over our common love for chocolates – with or without the dementors and boggarts!

Case in point – The magic hides in plain sight!! Just a pinch of imagination, a touch of delusion, some good know how of herbs and molecules – and then brews the tincture of happiness. Perhaps more of a reason for us to go back to reading fairy tales and nudge our little ones to do the same! Coz may be, it is so, that the entrance to the chamber of secrets lay somewhere in the annals of the pharmacology library all along!!

As Walt Disney famously quoted
‘Fantasy and reality often overlap.’