Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 115-116. (Budapest, 19869
TANULMÁNYOK - Magyar, László: Öngyógyító állatok (angol nyelven)
SELF-CURING ANIMALS LÁSZLÓ MAGYAR In ancient times, when we human beings were as much part and parcel of nature, that we had not even created the word nature, animals were not looked upon as moving objects, but as respected enemies and envied ideals. Our strength and knowledge had partly derived from them: the brave man was the lion, or a potent and fretful bull, while the wise capable of piercing darkness, was the owl. The god-figures of various mythologies will long preserve the memory of this age. In Egypt, bird-, baboon- and jackal-headed potentates ruled, but in the relatively young Hellas too, Hera was gazing out of her past with the eyes of a cow, and the goddess of wisdom still assumed her ancient self, the owl. In ancient times when perhaps even time had not existed, man did not live his individual, minute-by-minute life, but played the already available roles of life, completed with his own existence, thus asserting its importance. When order, which can be considered the basis of medicine, had gradually emerged from thousands of years of experience and from the mass of observed and recorded relationships, these notions were still forceful. The man concerned with healing was a bit of a snake, monkey or even an ibex, depending on the endowments of the prevailing culture. Later on, as soon as the physician started to be ashamed of his ancestry, he imagined the mother animals of his human form rather to be next to him, not behind him: man and animal thus separated for good. Nevertheless, the conceptions and traditions dating back to thousands of years do not easily become extinct. Moreover, the traditions of the originally divine, then only wise physician-animals were occasionally reinforced by experience, too, since quadrupeds do actually exist, who seek remedy for their troubles, and it is really amazing, how safely some animals are able to distinguish the poisonous plant from the edible one by a sense of smell and taste. 1 The world of popular beliefs and the early European science rooted in it, have preserved several — founded or unfounded — data, which refer to animals curing themeselves or others. In my selection I have endeavoured to compile on self-curing animals a far from complete list of data. In this I have not attempted to verify these descriptions, for, I believe this to be almost impossible in a subject with roots going far beyond what we call reality today. Selection has been made according to the following system: The material was not grouped according to ways of treatment or to medicines used by the animals, because this would be an unbalanced presentation. Namely, undefinable herbs and medicines are used fairly frequently, while surgical interventions and dietetic therapy are rare. Therefore, data are described according to the zoological terms, in particular, in the alphabetical order of the Latin names of the animals. Latin and less frequently, Greek names are used because the individual zoological terms can be 1 The Latin verb sapere (-sapiens) has originally meant to taste. In primitive societies those old people were supposed to be wise (sapientes), who could distinguish by tasting the useful from the poisonous plants.
