Loading video...
Animals Like Us
Animal Medicine
Like us, animals are exposed to parasites, bacteria and viruses - the germs which cause disease. How do they survive these attacks ? Recent research and observation have shown that animals use plant and insect substances to treat themselves - not only do they apply things to their skin, they actually treat themselves by feeding on things not normally part of their diets. Capuchin monkeys rub citrus fruit on their fur, caterpillars eat poison hemlock, herbivorous red deer have even been seen chewing the legs off live seabirds. This film takes off around the world to discover how animals use medicine, it questions what notions they have about health and how medical knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next. In doing so, the film also asks what we can learn from animals about medicine.
