Now I certainly didn't think I would come across this - an article on zoopharmacognosy (animal self-medication - click on the pictures to read the article), a topic that has always fascinated me, given me hope, and which I briefly got to experience while in the Amazon jungle. Over (emphasize over as this is clearly a low number, dependent on the direct derivation) 50% of modern medicines are based on natural plant sources.
The first e
xample is of a chimpanzee experiencing fatigue, diarrhea, and discolored urine. She chooses, while separated from the group, to chew and digest some leaves of the plant Vernonia amygdalina, which contains venonine, an antibiotic and antiparasitic, that is evidently widely used by African healers to treat diseases as diverse as scurvy, malaria, and rheumatism.A number of the other plants observed by researchers to be used by sick monkeys in the wild are antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics and so forth.
An interesting focus is on Aspilia leaves, the active compound of which is thiarubrine-A, fou
nd to be remarkably effective against solid tumors, i.e., cancer. (NB, that tragically, I do not have access to medical databases and as such, am limited in my ability to see how later western research may have played out - although herbal sites r
eiterate the findings in the wild) However, they have been shown in traditional medical circles to stop bleeding.Particularly cool, is Karen Strier's belief that female muriqui monkeys use plants to regulate hormones.
Evidently, at the beginning of their mating season, they eat a number of plants high in a substances that mimic estrogen and progesterone in the body. Subsequently, after giving birth, they eat different plants that limit the monkey's fertility. Kenneth Glander believes that howler monkeys have even attempted to control the sex of their offspring by ingesting certain plants that alter the electrical "potentials" in their reproductive tracts.So monkeys are an excellent source of finding medications - highlight on monkeys and not on other animals, not because other animals don't engage in this behavior, but merely because they tend to do so either in a way that is more efficient or (more likely to me) in a way that is more obvious and easily comprehensible to humans and as a result, more reported in western media. NB, that insects, parasites and indigestion (due to a diet with a lot of leaves) are the main issues they face and as a result, the primary source of medicine with which we are familiar.
It is possible that in composing this series I have become somewhat biased towards monkeys in a way that I wasn't before, but this bothers me. The title, "Primates in Traditional Medicine and as Hunting Trophies" was a bit of a clue-in. In India, there are some who treat rheumatism with monkey brain consumption and asthma with monkey blood. I actually do feel a little squeamish about killing the monkeys for this purpose, but of course, there is also a public health issue since diseases can pass from primates to humans.
To actually treat primates, I found a great deal of technical information that is insufficiently interesting for me to discuss, but should you take an interest in say, the appropriate level of creatine in an adolescent chimpanzee, check out the excel chart, Nonhuman Primate Formulary.
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