Читать книгу Extreme Nature - Mark Carwardine - Страница 21

NAME	chimpanzee Pan troglodytes
LOCATION	forests in East, West and Central Africa
ABILITY	self-medication

© Steve Robinson/NHPA

Yes, humans are the biggest drug-users. But we are not the only ones who use drugs, and we are only just beginning to discover the pharmaceutical knowledge of other animals. The current top-of-the-list user is the chimpanzee. Like us, chimps get stomach ache from time to time after overeating or consuming toxins. They also get parasites and diseases, and stressed animals usually end up feeling pretty ill.

It’s not surprising that an intelligent primate such as a chimp, which learns by trial and error and example, should have started to use medicinal products, since their forest habitat is full of them. In Tanzania, chimps suffering from diarrhoea have been seen using the leaves of the ‘bitter leaf’ tree that local people know as a medicine for malaria, amoebic dysentery and intestinal worms. Across Africa, chimps have been seen seeking out rough-leafed plants, plucking whole leaves from them, carefully folding the leaves, rolling them around in their mouths and then swallowing them. Excreted whole, the leaves push out parasites such as intestinal worms.

Many other animals also appear to self-medicate. Capuchin monkeys have been seen rubbing their fur with pungent plants that contain healing and insect-repellant properties. Black lemurs rub insect-killing chemicals from millipedes onto their fur. An elephant has been observed seeking out labour-inducing leaves of a tree just before giving birth. Given our increasing need for new antibiotics and remedies, such examples provide a good reason to keep nature’s pharmacy intact by respecting the environment.