Oh hello! I haven’t seen you around before. It’s good to see another human in Ponyville. I’m the local nurse. We have a fine medical establishment, as you can see here. Our ponies tend to get themselves into a bit of trouble more often than not. They can get a little too adventurous sometimes, but overall they’re pretty good about not sustaining any life-threatening injuries. Except the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any foals who are as accident-prone as though three. Did you know they once set fire to the lake?

But enough about ponies with potentially-short life spans. You’re standing in Ponyville Medical. It’s the one place that citizens of Ponyville have whenever they need rehabilitation from burns caused by dragon attacks, bruises and broken bones caused by manticores, petrification from cockatrices, and magic burns of all shapes, sizes and potency! Why are you looking at me like that? What do you mean you don’t have dragons, manticores and cockatrices? I’ve read many human books. What is that whole bit about Saint George and the Dragon? You mean that was an alligator? That’s…really incredibly scary! Alligators can appear as DRAGONS? Sheesh! No wonder your world is so dangerous! You have shapeshifting creatures to worry about.

You keep asking me how we can have technological advancements in medicine and magic at the same time. It’s very simple how the two intermingle with one another. But I’ve figured out why humans have such trouble with this. You see, what we call “magic” and what you call “magic” are two entirely different things. You have the scientific method, which helps you replicate results in order that you can make measurable studies of various phenomena. We can do that too with our type of magic here. All of it is replicable. In fact, I’d give you some books on it if it weren’t for that kingdom-wide ban on books being copied or shipped out to the human world. And I wouldn’t try taking them if I were you. Any books that attempt to pass the Great Divide are automatically teleported back to Celestia’s library…with your fingerprints on them. She has a whole list of people who are no longer allowed back into Equestria. Yo don’t want to be one of them, trust me. Her jurisdiction extends a little further out than the borders of Equestria.

I wanted to ask you something about your own kingdom, though. I haven’t met any doctors yet, but maybe you can answer this for me. What is the deal with your medical industry? You treat it like a business, but health can’t be a product for people. Many of your countries don’t have basic healthcare. I’ve never seen so many videos and images of homeless and sick citizens from any race here in Equestria like I do with your human population. And sometimes your doctors refuse to treat the sick and the dying because they don’t have health insurance? Is that true? What kind of monstrous system do you run over there?

Sometimes, when small groups of humans are sponsored to visit Equestria by your corporations, one of the first things they do is ask us to heal them with magic or medicine from our world. But we’ve learned that the effects of magic don’t last on humans once they go back to Earth. It’s like your world is devoid of that quality that Equestria has. We try to use exclusively non-magical medicinal techniques too, but the pathogens in your body don’t respond to our medicine. The one benefit from that is that humans and ponies cannot seem to contract diseases from one another. At least, not yet. It’s not unheard of for certain illnesses to pass from dragon to griffon or griffon to pony, and I’ve heard that various diseases from your land have jumped species too. It’s only a matter of time before they do the same here.

If you want to know more about magic, I can think of at least one pony who’d be able to help you…