More than just quacks in the animal kingdom

by Lisa Cardy

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THE art of healing isn't unique to humans. Chimpanzees and orang-utans use plants for medication and could teach us a thing or two about medicine, according to experts.

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Professor Michael Huffman from Kyoto University, Japan, happened to be watching a constipated chimpanzee one day. She ate the root of a noxious tree and was back to normal within days. The root was later examined for its medicinal properties and was found to be affective against several illnesses and is used by local people.

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Professor Huffman believes he was watching the evolutionary beginnings of human medicine and it could offer insights into new treatments.

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In Borneo Dr Willie Smits, a tropical forest specialist claims he once spotted an orang-utan clutching its head in pain until it ate a particular flower. Dr Smits was so convinced the animal had cured itself of a headache that the next time he suffered one himself he ate the same flower and his headache disappeared.

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Professor Huffman claims that the way animals use plants to treat themselves, known as zoopharmacognosy, is probably more effective than modern medicine. Drugs usually only have a single mechanism of action, they just do one thing. The disadvantage of this is that�they often stimulate diseases to develop a counter strategy of attack.

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The plants that the apes use, however,�contain lots of compounds�that all have different affects on disease. Professor Huffman believes that suppressing illness through a multi-pronged attack disables a diseases ability to develop resistance and could be a new way of treating humans and livestock. The research continues.