Ad Memoriam Eorum

There are a number of spirits that show signs of past injuries that have been treated: Wounded Warrior and Marching Adventurer have actual bandages on them so we know that the ancestors had at least some basic first aid knowledge--how to treat flesh/bone injuries and also eye injuries. Another example is Bowing Medalist during the 3rd Aurora memory:

Bowing Medalist falls off their manta during the race, is injured, put on a cot, and given a crutch to help them get around.

Another very interesting bit of lore comes from Peeking Postman's traveling spirit hint (in the past, traveling spirits were teased using lists of random trivia about them):

So in the past sky kingdom, there were infirmaries where people could go for treatment.

We know from Tiptoeing Teabrewer's memory (and Tender Toymaker's quest) that tea was used for treating (or at least for soothing) ill people.

One last thing before I talk about the elephant in the room: during the Season of Bluebird, the grandparent's quest/memory takes place in orbit and is about unborn baby sky kids choosing their life goal/destiny. One of the sky kids that the players assists has the destiny of "I'm going to invent machines that heal the sick."

That immediately got my interest and it brings up the question is Blue Bird taking place in the past (implying that sky kid lived in the past and therefor past sky people had machines for use in medicine) or is it taking place in the present (implying that the sky kid is born in modern times and our current generation of sky people will at some point invent machines for medicine in the future as the kingdom is restored).

It is possible that they had medical technology in the past more than just bandages, crutches, and tea--they did have electromechanical/magical technology such as the light towers in the Two Embers city (and all around wasteland) as well as the forcefields in the Reef/Abyss quests. We don't see any evidence of medical tech through the spirit memories or questlines, but perhaps as the kingdom declined, so did the medical technology and there wasn't much left by the time most of the quests/spirit memories occurred. We just don't know.

Anyways it's time to talk about the elephant in the room: crystallization.

Crystallization is an illness that plagued the civilization in the past and is a constant threat to modern day sky kids as well. Crystallization is caused by lack of light (like a vitamin deficiency). Exposure to darkness can steal/destroy a person's light which causes the light deficiency that leads to crystallization. The only effective way to treat crystallization is with light.

But in the past, Light was also used for defense against the darkness. The land was unsustainably harvested of almost all light (causing the crystallization illness in people) in order to defend against the darkness (and power the Eden crystal??) (watch the in-game Two Embers projector creator commentary for more info). So there were two competing needs for light: defense and for healing. Neither could be neglected but neither could be sustained.

Because of this, I suspect light was rationed--the majority of light collected going to the kingdom's defense and the minority allocated to healing. That's why in the Two Embers, entrance to the Cloister (where the healing light spring is located) was strictly limited and most ill people were treated at the door then sent on their way.

The limited healing light resource was likely distributed in a way that could sustain the most people for the longest time--giving people enough light to prevent their crystallization illnesses from progressing too far/too fast, but once a person's illness got too advanced (crystals on their torso, head, mask, and/or lungs), they couldn't get enough light to effectively treat them and they would die (like Tender Toymaker).

So exactly how was light used to heal people in the past? Two ways: just hanging out in the sacred spring and absorbing the healing light that fills the place, and direct healing.

If you go out of bounds outside of the cloister through one of the windows, you can watch people get healed. First the people stand in line, then kneel down, then they turn shiny, stand up, and walk away.

In the oob, there aren't any vault workers, but we know from Two Embers movie that it was the vault workers who were tending to the sick people (see earlier the screenshot in this post of folks standing in line on front of the cloister)--so I imagine it went something like this:

Finally, let's talk about the people who were the doctors and healers in the past.

Vault workers are the folks who take care of the sick and injured during Two Embers movie and in the Last City in-game. But who exactly are the vault workers? What exactly is the Vault? Is it a university where sky people can learn stuff and be trained in different higher-level jobs like engineer, astronomer, doctor, etc.? Do the healers wear the vault robes because they still belong to the vault even if they live and work somewhere else?

There is one other medical professional in Sky and it is this guy vv #favespirit #savedthebestforlast #myparent

If you know me at all, you've heard me talk about this spirit before--the Seed of Hope is a medic who ran around rescuing soldiers at the end of all things after the city had already fallen to darkness during Aurora's 4th quest. Lore from the wiki about Seed vv

"The poisoned soils of that field tore away all you knew, save one truth. You held fast to it, risking the only thing you had left. Because even the deepest shadows would not stop you from reaching to save what light you could."