红毛猩猩会自我治疗

Hi, I'm Scientific American podcast editor Steve Mirsky. Here's a short piece from the May 2018 issue of the magazine, in the section we call Advances: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Science, Technology and Medicine:

Orangutan Medicine by Doug Main Medicine is not exclusively a human invention.

Many other animals, from insects to birds to nonhuman primates, have been known to self-medicate with plants and minerals for infections and other conditions.

Behavioral ecologist Helen Morrogh-Bernard of the Borneo Nature Foundation has spent decades studying the island's orangutans and says she has now found evidence they use plants in a previously unseen medicinal way.

During more than 20,000 hours of formal observation, Morrogh-Bernard and her colleagues watched 10 orangutans

occasionally chew a particular plant (which is not part of their normal diet) into a foamy lather and then rub it into their fur. The apes spent up to 45 minutes at a time massaging the concoction onto their upper arms or legs.

The researchers believe this behavior is the first known example of a nonhuman animal using a topical analgesic. Local people use the same plant-Dracaena cantleyi, an unremarkable-looking shrub with stalked leaves-to treat aches and pains.

Morrogh-Bernard's co-authors studied its chemistry. They added extracts from the plant to human cells that had been grown in a dish

and had been artificially stimulated to produce cytokines, an immune system response that causes inflammation and discomfort. The plant extract reduced the production of several types of cytokines,

the scientists reported the finding in a study published last November in Scientific Reports. The results suggest that orangutans use the plant to reduce inflammation and treat pain.