Veterinary medicines from an ethnobotanist
William Milliken, an ethnobotanist at Kew Gardens, is on a mission to record the UK’s fast-disappearing knowledge of natural veterinary methods
How would you treat a sick cow? What about with a mixture of wild garlic and lard, pushed into a slit in the cow’s tail?
How to slim down an overweight dog? A diet of boiled cabbage with a pinch of sage for the flatulence could be the answer.
These remedies are unusual, yet they are (or were) advocated by at least some British animal owners, as we know from ethnobotanist William Milliken’s research.
Ethnobotanists, like Milliken, are scientists that study the interrelationships between people and plants, particularly indigenous plants and how they are used in different cultures.
Last year, Milliken, 59, put out a nationwide call for anecdotes about foraged plants used to treat ailments in farm animals and pets – known as “ethnoveterinary knowledge”. Milliken and his fellow researchers believe this wealth of knowledge could hold the answers to more sustainable veterinary medicines, and were concerned that centuries worth of knowledge was on the brink of being lost.
“If I had done it 20 years earlier, I would have got more information,” says Milliken, who believes some remedies have already been lost. “A lot of the responses were from people in their 70s who said, ‘My mother or my father used to do this’ – such as using broom to cure horses with intestinal worms.”
This traditional knowledge, passed down by word of mouth and notebooks, has never been collected on a mass scale in the UK before. Milliken combined his responses into a database along with other sources including online forums and the Irish Schools Folklore Collection. This was a similar exercise that encouraged Irish school children to record knowledge and folklore from their older relatives, and has recently been digitised. In total Milliken identified 198 species of plants used to treat animals.
The aim was to identify the natural remedies people used the most, with a plan to analyse those plants and use them to develop new medicines.
“the smell of the garlic would then go through the tail and kill a worm which had penetrated the spine. The animal would be on its feet in a couple of days. No veterinary surgeon would believe that it worked.”
“There are good reasons for seeking alternatives to pharmaceutical veterinary medicines,” Milliken explains. “It could help to combat resistance to antibiotics and anthelmintics [drugs used to treat parasitic warm infections], and prevent the overuse of insecticides which you use for treating fly strike [parasitic infestation of the body of a live animal by fly larvae] on sheep.” Insecticides have a negative impact on insects in the soil or in the rivers, he says, and he is hopeful that plants could be used to find biodegradable alternatives.
One of the most common responses was the use of ivy to treat a range of conditions in sheep. Many people reported using ivy to treat sheep “when they have lost their appetite” or to “get the odd ewe up again”.
Wild garlic was another popular choice, most often used to treat coughs and worms in cattle. The respondent who proposed the lard-garlic treatment went on to explain that “the smell of the garlic would then go through the tail and kill a worm which had penetrated the spine. The animal would be on its feet in a couple of days. No veterinary surgeon would believe that it worked.”
As this creative interpretation of the science suggests, not all these treatments can be relied upon. However, the fact that certain plants have been used so widely is surely an indication of some legitimate value.
Milliken’s collected responses contained some remedies that have never appeared before in studies. “There is a lot of research going on in Europe. I am particularly interested in those plants which are widely used in Britain and Ireland, but have not come up in Europe.”
One example is the use of ivy to treat eye conditions in cattle or sheep. An entrant in the Irish Folklore Collection suggested: “Ivy is bruised together until the juice is squeezed out. It is then rubbed well on the sores. After some time the eyes will be better.”
There is another aspect to the story that Milliken’s research unearthed. Several people suggested that the most effective animal care relies on access to a range of plant species, as they would naturally.
A respondent from West Sussex said: “Sheep do not find new ways to die. In general, their owners find new ways to kill them. It is by shutting them up in fields, and so denying them access to the herbage to satisfy their ever-changing needs, that sheep-keepers weaken their constitutions and render them vulnerable to whatever stresses and strains come along.”
“Some people have produced a medicinal field, full of a variety of potentially beneficial plants, and let the animals self-medicate. I think that’s a really interesting idea,” Milliken says.
Another approach is to use “herbal lays”, where a plant with a deeper root is grown around the edge of the field. Milliken explains that this “brings up more nutrients and lasts longer, but also has health benefits. People plant chicory for herbal lays because it is an anthelmintic [a drug to treat parasitic worms].”
So, there are two ways that foraging could improve animal care. By drawing on traditional knowledge and making use of proven plant remedies, animal owners would reduce the environmental impact of harsh chemical medicines on the natural environment and combat growing resistance to certain drugs. The other way is to let animals forage for themselves. Animals have an instinct to self-medicate, so when allowed to browse varied vegetation could treat many of these conditions without human intervention.
Take a look at this orangutan for evidence – they don’t need us!