The astonishing story of how animals use medicine and what it can teach us about healing ourselves.
Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature’s pharmacy to heal themselves. Animals of all kinds—from ants to apes, from bees to bears, and from cats to caterpillars—use various forms of medicine to treat their own ailments and those of their relatives.
Meet apes that swallow leaves to dislodge worms, sparrows that use cigarette butts to repel parasites, and bees that incorporate sticky resin into their hives to combat pathogens. De Roode asks whether these astonishing behaviors are learned or innate and explains why, now more than ever, we need to apply the lessons from medicating animals—it can pave the way for healthier livestock, more sustainable habitats for wild pollinators, and a host of other benefits.
Doctors by Nature explores how scientists are turning to the medical knowledge of the animal kingdom to improve agriculture, create better lives for our pets, and develop new pharmaceutical drugs.
Jaap de Roode received his MSc in Population Biology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and his PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He is interested in the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, and currently studies infectious diseases of monarch butterflies, honey bees and humans.
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