Oct 27, 2021
We have all seen dogs eat grass to alleviate illnesses; why would we not think that other animals do not consume other plants for therapeutic purposes? In fact, it was the great Jane Goodall and other colleagues in East Africa who recorded chimps and even elephants eating medicinal plants. This episode ranges from Tanzania to eastern Brazil to Wisconsin to document animals' use of medicinal and even toxic plants.
Acosta, William. Bombardier Beetles and Fever Trees: A Close-up Look at Chemical Warfare and Signals in Animals and Plants. Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Cowen, Ron. “Medicine on the Wild Side.” Science News, vol. 138, no. 18, 1990, p. 280., https://doi.org/10.2307/3974722.
Engel, Cindy. Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We Can Learn from Them. Phoenix, 2003.
Huffman, Michael A. “Animal Self-Medication and Ethno-Medicine: Exploration and Exploitation of the Medicinal Properties of Plants.” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, vol. 62, no. 2, 2003, pp. 371–381., https://doi.org/10.1079/pns2003257.
Huffman, Michael A. “Current Evidence for Self-Medication in Primates: A Multidisciplinary Perspective.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 104, no. S25, 1997, pp. 171–200., https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1096-8644(1997)25+<171::aid-ajpa7>3.0.co;2-7.
INGRAHAM, CAROLINE. Animal Self-Medication: How Animals Heal Themselves Using Essential Oils, Herbs and ... Minerals. INGRAHAM TRADING LTD, 2019.
Link, K. P. “The Discovery of Dicumarol and Its Sequels.” Circulation, vol. 19, no. 1, 1959, pp. 97–107., https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.19.1.97.
Montgomery, Sy. Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009.
Plotkin, Mark J. Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets. Penguin Books, 2001.
Strier, Karen B. Faces in the Forest: The Endangered Muriqui Monkeys of Brazil. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Strier, Karen B. Primate Behavioral Ecology. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.