The origins of zoopharmacognosy: how humans learned about self-medication from animals

Abstract

The term zoopharmacognosy was first introduced in 1987 as a multidisciplinary study of the self-medication behavior of many kinds of animals. Humans and non-human animals have been observing and interacting with each other since prehistoric times and learning about nature together. Humans have probably been aware for a long time that animals used specific substances in certain ways when they were sick and that this sometimes helped them to heal. Thanks to zoopharmacognosy, we are beginning to learn more concrete aspects of this relatively new branch of science that deals with how animals treat disease with organic or inorganic substances that they find in their environment. In some cases, they even seem to use plants or other natural items as drugs in a very similar way to ourselves in order to treat the very same symptoms that we do. Although zoopharmacognosy is a young science, in this study we searched for and analyzed the relevant early data and precedents in published papers and from historical sources that endorse the remarkable antiquity of the attention and concern of humankind for it.