Wild animals and their medicine chest.

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

 

I have always had a childlike curiosity about how animals in the wild manage

their health. I have observed domestic dogs chewing on leaves when sick and also

mongooses fighting snakes darting off to chew the antidote when bitten.

 

Recently, last Friday, the Discovery channel aired a one hour programme exactly

on this subject. The programme sought to concentrate on primates but even within

this narrow range what emerged was mind boggling.

 

It was observed that primates spent a large part of their free time grooming

each other. While mothers licked their babies, friends rid each other of lice

and lone males scratched their furry bodies. They also frolicked a lot getting

good exercise in the process. The strong bonding between themselves had a

salutory effect on their mental and emotional health.

 

Though it is assumed that trees and plants in the wild are free from chemical

pesticides, many plants and herbs secrete poisons to ward off herbivores. The

primates eat these and often fall a prey to various digestive disorders.

Moreover in the course of fights many get wounded. Therefore it was imperative

to keep an eye on them to see how they cope with such crises.

 

Animals were found to frequent salt licks. The salt not only provides essential

nutrients and guards against dehydration but also helps them to detoxify

themselves from natural toxins. They were also observed eating mud at certain

select places. There must be a certain medicinal property in that mud as

constant use by various animals had created mine like craters in those places.

Some monkeys were seen applying this mud on their wounds. If the monkeys felt

discomfort they also induced vomit by taking some herbs so that they were spared

the dangers of a toxic meal.

 

Monkeys seemed to know that certain herbs were poisonous. Yet they took this

herbs in very small quantities for reasons of health. They also seemed to know

the seasonal value of leaves, plants and fruits. They also knew about

differences in medicinal qualities of leaves, stems, bark and roots. They also

used water prudently and knew the benefits of a sun bath.

 

A very indigenous method was shown to be adopted by certain primates infested

with worms. They picked some leaves, folded them inside their mouth four to five

times making it thick and swallowed them whole. These leaves are indigestible

and thus tend to pass straight through the stomach and intestines scraping out

the worms mechanically. Nanotechnology?

 

Some monkeys had developed a very strange habit of getting rid of digestive

discomfort and colic. They strayed into human habitat and ate charcoal left over

from wood fed fires. Just how they came to know about the benefits of charcoal

remains a mystery.

 

It was observed that the wild animals suffered mainly from peripheral disorders

like skin problems, intestinal disorders, wounds etc. They had, through

centuries of observation handed down by generations, learnt to cope with these

ailments naturally.

 

In a separate episode of the National Geographic a lioness was shown battling

the bite of a venomenous cobra. It lay in the banks of a river drinking water

occasionally and lying supine. It took about a week for the lioness to recover

completely. It was very strange but natural predators of the lioness like

hyenas, jackals etc left it alone at this time. They probably guessed that the

lioness had been poisoned and thus avoided eating the poisonous meat. Nature was

both harsh and protective of the lioness at this time of crisis.

 

Regards,

Jagannath.