When you feel sick, going to a doctor or reaching for over-the-counter medications seems like a unique human activity. After all, when did you last see a pigeon with a pigeon with a butt? But as scientists learn steadily, the foundation of medicine – the behavior of taking certain measures to mitigate or prevent disease has surpassed human origins.
In his forthcoming book Born Doctor: How ants, apes and other animals heal themselvesEmory University biologist Jaap de Roode leads readers to explore the complex world of animal medicine through relaxed and fun exploration.
The book begins with a study by De Roode, which is about how monarch butterflies protect their young people from parasites by laying eggs on higher levels of milkweed plants. From there, he cites the work of many other scientists to detail how chimpanzees, ants, bees and even our pet cats practice their own medical forms.
Gizmodo tells De Roode about the inspiration for his book, why drugs in animals may be more common than they currently believe, and the value of rediscovering lessons about the natural world. The following conversation has been edited in detail for syntax and clarity.
Ed Cara, Gizmodo: What forced you to write a book about animal medicine and cover up many other animals besides the Monarch Butterfly?
Jaap de Roode: This is a really cool topic, I always love animals. But when I first studied Monarch Butterfly and came up with the idea that medicine could be used, I encountered a lot of resistance. This resistance does stem from the idea that animals must be super smart, have super big brains, and have as many as humans [to use medicine]. So, in some ways, I just want to prove that this is not the case. In fact, there are many animals with these amazing abilities to cheer themselves, their offspring and siblings. To me, it's really important – to get people to notice. It is exciting to realize this for many reasons, but it is also important.
Gizmodo: You provide more than a dozen specific examples of animal medicine throughout the book. However, it seems that we still have barely scratched the surface of this phenomenon. Do you expect scientists like you to eventually discover countless other animals that practice medicine?
de Roode: In fact, since Mike Hoffman and others began looking at chimpanzees in the 1980s, the field has been scientifically developed, and now we are studying various insects.
We also see people now starting to think about this more. Many of the examples I describe in the book do stem from contingency – people are not looking for it, but they find it. So here is another thing I hope to do with this book: show people what’s real, rather than stumble upon it, we should start looking for it purposefully. I'm looking at my bookshelf now and I've seen a book about mosquitoes and you know, some ideas might actually be [self-medicate] As an adult. Only females suck blood, and other than that, when males and females do not breed, they are drinking all kinds of nectar. We know that there are various phytochemicals in nectar. So even at that level, we may find mosquitoes doing the same. This is just an example. So, yes, I think there are many more.
Gizmodo: A common theme you keep going back is that today’s scientists often rediscover the lessons people learn from only observing the animals around them. What can we benefit from understanding the various animal drugs that occur everywhere in our world?
de Roode: For me, the most surprising thing about writing this book is just discovering how much we have known in the past and how to get rid of these ideas. This is especially true for Western societies, where we like to believe that humans are not part of nature and that we need to be unique. So we are always looking for ways to make us better or smarter than other species. All the time, we are just rediscovering what people knew thousands of years ago.
There are many examples, such as how traditional therapists and shamans view animals to propose various medical treatments. Even aspirin may come from bears that people use willow bark to hibernate. Therefore, we can see these benefits of human drug discovery. But I think we can benefit from other aspects and from the interests of animals, too.
I talk about these livestock experiments in this book. And I think it's so fun that when you get sheep, goat and cattle to assemble your own diet, you give them what they need for nutrition, but also offer options from medicinal plants – they're really good at meeting their personal needs and healing themselves as well. This means we don’t have to use antibiotics and antiworming that much, which means we won’t create the resistance we really suffer from now. Therefore, you give animals a better life and a better benefit to them.
The same goes for bees. There is this ongoing bee crisis. Part of the reason we have a crisis is that we believe bees are stupid, so we do things for them, not let them do medicine. But bringing it back will make bees healthier, which will make us healthier. It will help with all the pollination required for our food production.
If we make happier animals, it will bring them to happier people.
Gizmodo: What are the animal medicines you learned in the book besides your personal work with the Monarch Butterfly?
de Roode: My favorite story is the finch and sparrow using cigarette butt [to prevent parasitic infestations of their nests]. This is partly because I had some knowledge of this research before, but it was fascinating to go to Mexico to meet researchers, see the nests and see birds. But it does show how adaptable the animals are, especially the birds in these nests, which do adapt to them. It's an opportunistic because without cigarette butts, they will use other substances, such as nicotine plants or other plants with chemicals that act on these parasites. Just seeing the creativity of these animals is a beautiful story and I really like it.
Born Doctor: How ants, apes and other animals heal themselvespublished by Princeton University Press, will be released on March 4.
