Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 115-116. (Budapest, 19869

TANULMÁNYOK - Magyar, László: Öngyógyító állatok (angol nyelven)

TORTUCA (Greek tortoise) According to Albertus, this is a kind of reptile which eats origanum against snake-bite.

89 TURTUR (turtle dove) According to Pliny, it uses herbam helxinem to purge itself.

90 URSUS (bear) In Aristotle's work it is reported to eat arum after awaking from its wipter-hibernaiion to normalize its digestion.

91 It protects itself against a visual defect with bee-sting.

92 It treats its wound with phlomos herb, according to Ambrosius.

93 If being poisoned by mandrake, it will eat ants as a panacea, says Pliny.

94 VULPES (fox) It cures its lethal ailment by resin — describes Ambrosius in the Hexaemeron.

95 SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS The three branches of medicine have long been separated from each other.

96 There is a possibility to cure by hand (chirurgy-surgery), it is possible by drugs (pharmaceutics) and also by regulation of the vital processes (dietetics). This latter is, naturally, a much younger branch of science than the other two, since it can be cultivated even among humans on a certain financial-social level.

97 Of the dietetic treatments the wild animals can practise at best fasting, blood-letting and purging, i. e. the so-called evacuation procedures. Smitten with disease, they can most frequently resort to drug or less often, to surgical therapy. Therapy is, in general, influenced by three things: the disease, the healer's knowledge and the possibilities of healing. The conception of curing is not known by animals. They cure themselves when feeling some pain, i. e. when they apply — if they do at all — the so called symptomatic treatment. Their knowledge is equal to their instincts and, as far as their possibilities are concerned, they do not have any surgical instruments, let alone, with some exceptions, fingers, only their teeth and claws and the objects of nature are available to them. Their medicines derive from the range of simplicia (except for the serpent), i. e. in case of their disease they can eat plants, stones and occasionally some other animals, their medicines are homogeneous and unprocessed. Each animal is mostly familiar with only one single treatment. If it is not so, we can suspect two things, either a mythological background, or the blending of several traditions. The animals cure only themselves and not their fellow-creatures. As a matter of course, the animal-mother is an exception who cures her kid (it is doubtful, whether to regard the parent and the offspring as separate creatures), as well as the pair of animals living in a curing-nursing symbiosis.

98 This selfishness can be ascribed to the fact that empathy and pity as well, as parsimony are alien to the animals. 89 Albertus Magnus, (n. 12) vol. 1, 8. 47 90 Pliny, (n. 2) H. N., 8. 28 91 Aristotle, (n. 9) Hist. An., 1. 6, 612a 5 92 Crollius, (n. 5) De signaturis, p. 148 93 Ambrosius, (n. 87) Hexaemeron, 6. 4. 19 94 Pliny, (n. 2) H. N., 8. 28 95 Ambrosius, (n. 87) Hexaemeron, 6. 4. 19 96 Celsus, (n. 52) De medicina, Prohoimium 9 97 Harig, G—J. Kollesch, "Gesellschaftliche Aspekte der antiken Diätetik", NTM, 1971, 8., Heft 1, p. 17 98 The example is the well-known case of the crocodile-bird and of the crocodile. Albertus Magnus notes that the crocodile happens sometimes to eat the strofilus, i. e. the bird searching in his mouth. (8. 46)