Filed under: Uncategorized
The other day I was thinking about the fact that whenever I look up uses of plants I so often discover that at one time or another some group of people somewhere used it for medicinal purposes. It got me to wondering, why? How would people know what plant would have which effect? Naturally, that led me to wonder whether they might have learned about plant uses by observing animals.
“Why not?” I thought. Why shouldn’t animals use plants in the same way as humans? So, I went to the source I so often go to when I have a burning desire to find something out: I Googled it. And, sure enough, my search turned up “About 1,520,000 results [in] (0.13 seconds)”.
The first article on the list was from The National Zoo – The Smithsonian – a reputable source, I figured. So I checked it out and right away I learned a new word: “zoopharmacognosy”. This is the term used to describe self-medicative behavior in animals.
“What are some of these self-medicative behaviors?” I can hear you asking. Well, there are examples of pregnant elephants who self-induce labor, monkeys who rub themselves with citrus leaves that work as insecticides, and bears who do the same with a different plant. Then there are the chimpanzees who fold up and swallow specific “hairy” leaves that are not in their normal diet, for the sole purpose of getting rid of intestinal parasites. (You’ll have to read the article to learn how they figured that one out.)
The leaves used by chimpanzees for intestinal parasites are also used by people in sub-Saharan Africa for at least 25 ailments, half of them intestinal or parasitic in nature. Similarly, leaves from the tree the African elephant used to self-induce labor, is also used by Kenyan women for the same purpose – except in the case of the elephant, she ate an entire tree, whereas the women only have to brew a tea from the leaves.
But, of course, does that mean that humans learned these behaviors from the animals? Well, according to the humans, the answer is very likely, “Yes”. The Navajo Indians call Ligusticum porteri, bear root. In the words of the article: “According to the folklore of southwestern Navajos, the bear by example gave the tribe this root … for treating stomachaches and infections”.
Researchers are anxious to learn more. They think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg with respect to animal-informed medicinal plant use. We all loved it when Dr. Doolittle sang that song about “talking to the animals” – suggesting that it would win him “a place in history”. Now it seems a sizable group of researchers agree that it is indeed a big step forward – and could certainly lead the way to making the world a lovelier place.
