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Chimpanzees Use Herbs as Medicine

Chimpanzees in Tanzania were observed eating leaves from the aspilia bush, which is not typically part of their diet and has sharp leaves. The chimpanzee named Hugo carefully picked and rubbed the leaves before swallowing them, similar to how humans take medicine. The aspilia bush is also used by local people as medicine. Scientists were surprised to find chimpanzees self-medicating and concluded they may be using the plant to treat illness or wake themselves up, similar to how humans use coffee. Other animals also appear to self-medicate, like elephants in Kenya eating rocks in caves containing sodium to neutralize toxins in their plant diets.

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39 views4 pages

Chimpanzees Use Herbs as Medicine

Chimpanzees in Tanzania were observed eating leaves from the aspilia bush, which is not typically part of their diet and has sharp leaves. The chimpanzee named Hugo carefully picked and rubbed the leaves before swallowing them, similar to how humans take medicine. The aspilia bush is also used by local people as medicine. Scientists were surprised to find chimpanzees self-medicating and concluded they may be using the plant to treat illness or wake themselves up, similar to how humans use coffee. Other animals also appear to self-medicate, like elephants in Kenya eating rocks in caves containing sodium to neutralize toxins in their plant diets.

Uploaded by

muhidin.10051989
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

According to recent research in biology, chimpanzees in the

wild are thought to choose certain herbs and use them as


medicines when they are not feeling well. After studying
how chimpanzees eat the leaves of specific bushes and trees
in Tanzania, two scientists, Paul Newton of the University of
Oxford and Toshisuda Nashida of the University of Kyoto,
concluded that there are striking similarities between how these animals
eat these plants and how humans take their medicines.
Until recently, only humans were believed to be able to make intelligent
decisions when it comes to curing illnesses. But that was before the two
scientists carried out their research in the Gombe National Park in
Tanzania. They noticed that a chimpanzee they called Hugo was behaving
differently from the other animals. He was picking the leaves from a bush
that does not usually make up part of the chimpanzees' diet. The bush is
called aspilia, and it has very sharp leaves, which is precisely why
chimpanzees don't usually eat them.
What was surprising was the way Hugo ate the plant. He not
only picked it very carefully, he also rubbed the leaves
before he put them in his mouth, and then he kept them in
his mouth for a little while before he swallowed them. This is
exactly how humans take medicine! What was even more
surprising for the scientists, though, was that the very same
plant that the chimpanzee selected is known to be used by local people
as a medicine when they feel unwell!
Newton and Nashida were also surprised to find that when chimpanzees
take this 'medicine', they only do so afternoon. They believe that they do
this because the level of medication in their body has decreased
overnight. Another explanation is that these wild animals look for the
juice of this bitter plant for the same reason that humans drink a cup of
coffee in the morning - to help them wake up and give them energy! In
her book, Wild Health: How Animals Keep Themselves Well and What We
Can Learn From Them, author Cindy Engel gives several other examples
of how animals treat health problems.
According to her, it's not only plants they use as medication.
Elephants in western Kenya, for example, are said to go
regularly at night-time to a cave on the side of Mount Elgon,
an extinct volcano. Once they are in the cave, they use their
tusks to break off parts of the soft rocks, crunch them in
their mouths, and then swallow them. For a long time, little
was known about the reasons for this behaviour, but recently scientists
have discovered that the rocks contain a high level of sodium, which is
needed to help neutralise the toxins that elephants are known to take in
with their plant diet. The behaviour of these elephants and of other
animals shows that they have developed amazing abilities to care for
their own health without any doctor having told them what medication to
take!

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