Making villagers sick just to heal them again seems rather unethical to me. Yes, I know they're really just a collection of pixels ...

As Damballah indicates, it's a lot lesss trouble just to drop doctors on a magic plant than to go through all the palaver of making a stew.

I noticed they gain more skills quicker using the plant drop method too or that maybe just me thinking that any-who its so much gentler!!!

Kittenangel, they absolutely DO gain more from a plant drop! I know you know that after about 3 plant drops, you can have a Trainee Doctor. If you start them out at 14, if they have no preferences, they will stay at it until they are Adepts. Much faster than making a poisonous stew, and dragging your doctors to the villagers.

Yes, but if you have a villager who dislikes work or learning and they have no skills, it might be a good idea to get them some skills before they reach fourteen years of age so that they can keep working from there. I think that's how I got one of my healers.

I have found quite often that Trainee doctors (not Untrained) are more apt to become bored or unsure what to do and hang around the village center, even those with inherited healing skill. Sometimes I have to drag them back to plants a few times before they figure out what they are supposed to do.

I totally agree!!
That true! If they don't have too much other skills.
That's true also with the Trainee Builders!

Yeah they gain with sick people but studying plants will more help them but trainee to adept is faster than asdept to master!

True enough, but I just keep giving them "classtime" at the black vine every day, and many of my healers are Master Doctors by 34, so it's not really that long. One thing about having several Adepts and several trainee Doctors is that if someone becomes ill, they all rush to the place and mill about, and the poor SICK individual stands there "Waiting for someone." You still have to drag somebody to the sick villager to heal them.

i recommened give them the death stew it will make them sick!

This will sound awful to some of you, but I used to make sick and kill off my grey haired (from birth) and "coconut-headed" villagers because they were ugly.

I have since begun using the greys as healers, figuring maybe the hair can be seen as a sign of premature wisdom, and thus less ugly. I still kill off the coconut heads if they are born, unless they happen to be runners.