Animals are free to self-medicate and apparently often do so effectively. Isn’t it ironic that our government F.D.A. restricts the freedom of humans to self-medicate?
(p. A13) . . . as Jaap de Roode reveals in “Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves,” many animals seek out substances to relieve illnesses or battle parasites that drag their health down: . . .
Mr. de Roode, a biology professor at Emory University, chronicles animal self-medication in everything from caterpillars and bees to pigs and dolphins. The drugs take the form of minerals, fungi and especially plants. Often, the drug is ingested for therapeutic reasons, as when chimps eat Velcro-like leaves to scour parasitic worms from their intestines. Many creatures also take drugs prophylactically, to prevent disease. The feline love of catnip, Mr. de Roode suggests, is probably an evolutionary adaptation: The plant deters disease-carrying mosquitoes, so cats with a taste for it ended up more equipped for survival.
. . .
Many plants produce chemicals called alkaloids that taste foul and cause other unpleasant sensations, but can also fight off parasites. After noticing that woolly bear caterpillars infested with fly maggots tend to seek out alkaloid-rich plants, scientists documented—by threading tiny wires into the caterpillars’ mouths—that the infected critters’ taste buds fired far more often when eating these plants than did the taste buds of the uninfected. The bugs’ sensory perception changed to make drugs more attractive. If the consumption of some irregular substance leads to a drop in infection load and alleviates negative symptoms, then, Mr. de Roode convincingly argues, animals are indeed using medicine. Caterpillar, heal thyself.
. . .
Humans can benefit from studying animal medicine, too. Most of our drugs are either plant compounds or derived from plant compounds. But researchers have systematically studied only a few hundred of the earth’s estimated tens of thousands of plant species. To guide researchers’ studies, scientists could note which ones animals consume and concentrate on those. Let Mother Nature do the research and development for us.
For the full review see:
Sam Kean. “Bookshelf; Medicinal Kingdom.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, March 28, 2025): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 27, 2025, and has the title “Bookshelf; ‘Doctors by Nature’: Medicinal Kingdom.”)
The book under review is:
Roode, Jaap de. Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2025.