Nature medicine. Can animals really heal themselves?

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Author comforts old Nikko, a Doberman in his last days -  family pet and guard
faithful for 15 years.

Old folks tell us of a number of cases animals can actually heal themselves. 

1. Dogs, deer, cattle, and the like, clean their wounds by licking them.  Their saliva contains natural antibiotics.  It is often that they deliberately expose their wounds to sunlight. Others like the muskrat seal its wounds with resin or gum.


2. Domestic fowls and birds have the habit of preening to arrange their feathers in place, and to get rid of parasites and foreign matters.  


3. Birds and animals bathe regularly, and these baths are of many varieties – water, sun (sun bath), mud (carabao and pigs), and dust (ground fouls).


4. A wounded orangutan or gorilla will attempt to staunch the flow of blood with its hands, and will then close the hole with packing of astringent aromatic leaves.


5. Old grizzly bears use the hot sulfur baths, which may alleviate the aches incident to age.


6. A wolf bitten by rattlesnake chews snakeroot; a wild turkey during a rainy spell, compels her babies to eat spice bush leaves.


7. An animal with fever hunts up an airy, shady place near water and remains quiet, eating very little and drinking often. 


8. Female birds need lime to form eggshells, and it is a common thing to see pet birds eating cuttle bone.

9. When sick or wounded, wild creatures resort to the ancient remedies of nature: medicines, pure air and complete relaxation. 

10. What to eat as self-medication:

• Baboons in Ethiopia eat the leaves of a plant to combat the flatworms that cause schistosomiasis.

• Fruit flies lay eggs in plants containing high ethanol levels when they detect parasitoid wasps, a way of protecting their offspring.

• Red and green macaws, along with many animals, eat clay to aid digestion and kill bacteria.

• Female woolly spider monkeys in Brazil add plants to their diet to increase or decrease their fertility.

• Pregnant lemurs in Madagascar nibble on tamarind and fig leaves and bark to aid in milk production, kill parasites, and increase the chances of a successful birth.

• Pregnant elephants in Kenya eat the leaves of some trees to induce delivery.

Self-medication among animals and lower organisms has inspired humans in the art of natural healing. 

To this day, barefoot doctors and spiritual healers (herbolarios) use many of the ways animals heal themselves. ~