Really Wild Remedies

Pausing only to wipe the feverish sweat from her brow, the WaTongwe woman finishes crushing a few leaves and stems a fellow tribe member brought her from the mujonso, or " bitter leaf tree. She soaks them in a bowl of cold water while her stomach aches with a dull pain. Closing her eyes and grimacing in anticipation of the liquid's foul taste, she holds her nose and gulps down the bitter elixir, hoping this reliable remedy will rid her of the intestinal pain that's plagued her for days.

Nearby, in Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park, a lethargic chimpanzee suffering from diarrhea and malaise slowly pulls a young shoot off a small tree called Vernonia amygdalina. She peels away the shoot's bark and leaves with her teeth, and begins chewing on the succulent pith. Swallowing the juice, she spits out most of the fibers, then continues to chew and swallow a few more stalks for half an hour.

Recovered within 24 hours, both of these females resume business as usual. They were both suffering the effects of an intestinal parasite infection. And, in case you haven't guessed, they both ate from the same tree.

Zoopharmacognosy

Back by popular demand, the revival of herbal medicine among industrialized nations is challenging the modern pharmacological market. Tired, perhaps, of expensive, highly synthetic drugs, we look to traditional healers in faraway places to share their time-tested therapies. The majority of the world's population, in fact, still relies on traditional medicines to some degree for their basic health care. Some scientists feel this is a valid method of finding cures for certain diseases. Others believe we should head straight for the jungle and see what leafy remedies animals are munching on. After all, isn't it possible that people learned about self-healing by watching their wild neighbors? " The probability that animals may have something to teach us about the medicinal use of plants is quite high, " says primatologist Michael Huffman at the Kyoto University of Japan. Actually, the idea's hardly been ignored. In fact, an entirely new field, sometimes called " zoopharmacognosy, " has evolved from the onslaught of diverse research on self-medicative behavior in animals over the past two decades. Animal behaviorists, ecologists, pharmacologists, anthropologists, geochemists, and parasitologists have all contributed to this truly multi-faceted discipline.

Huffman is one of the pioneers of zoopharmacognosy. Huffman analyzed the chimp’s dung and found the intestinal parasite Oesophagostomum Stephanas tomumto be the most likely explanation for her symptoms. What's more, he found lower levels of the worm in another female chimp's excretions 20 hours after she ate the bitter pith from a Vernonia tree. This prompted him to collaborate with researchers in Japan, Canada, France and the United Kingdom to find out what, if anything, the plant contained that might have killed the worms.

Huffman and his colleagues made an important discovery: They isolated an entirely new class of compounds from the pith, one of which, vernonioside Bl, was found to possess antiparasitic. antitumor, and antibacterial properties. What's more, the leaves contain high levels of a well-known class of poisonous compounds found only in minute amounts in the pith. While these substances are also antiparasitic, they are likely toxic to the chimps. Vernonia amygdalinals not a regular part of the chimpanzee diet, and when it is eaten, it's often in small amounts, by chimps that appear ill. For these reasons, Huffman believes that they consume the plant for its medicinal rather than nutritional benefits. His work was the first to verify illness in an animal that showed improvement after eating a known medicinal plant. Interestingly, Vernonia amygdalinahas more than 25 known medicinal uses among people of sub-Saharan Africa, about half of them for intestinal and parasitic ailments. People have learned to use the pith, leaves, and roots, probably because the more toxic compounds have been selectively bred out of the Vernonia that is cultivated in gardens.

Vocabulary of the text:

to pause- остановиться, прервать

to wipe- вытирать, промокать

feverish sweat- пот, вызванный лихорадкой

to crush- ломать, дробить

a fellow- парень

tribe- племя

bitter- горький

to soak- выжимать

foul- вонючий

to dulp down- выпить залпом

to rid smb of- избавить

to plague- досаждать, надоедать

malaise- недомогание

shoot- побег

to peel- снимать, чистить

bark- кора

succulent- сочный

pith- сердцевина

to spit out- выплюнуть

stalk- стебель

to resume- возобновлять

to suffer- страдать, переносить

demand- требования

revival- оживление, возобновление

to challenge- бросать вызов

healer- целитель

to rely on- полагаться

cure- излечение

to munch- жевать

self- medicative- самоизлечающий

dung- помет

worm- червь

consume- потреблять

Упражнение 1. Прочтите и переведите текст, используя словарь.

Упражнение 2. Скажите, являются ли следующие утверждения истинными или ложными, исправьте ложные утверждения:

1.A fellow tribe member brought a woman a few leaves from a “bitter leaf” tree.

2.Both a woman and a female chimpanzee did not recover after taking the juice of a small tree called Vernonia amygdalina.

3.They were both suffering the effects of an intestinal parasite infection.

4.Herbal medicine becomes popular among industrialized nations.

5.Huffman is not one of the pioneers of zoopharmacology.

6.Analyzing the chimp’s dung Huffman did not find the intestinal parasite.

7.He collaborated with researches of many countries to find out what the plant contained that might have killed the worms.

Упражнение 3. Ответьте на вопросы:

1.What did the woman do to relieve aches in her stomach?

2.How did chimpanzee try to get rid of diarrhea and malaise?

3.Did both females use the same plant for recovery?

4.What was the effect of the plant therapy?

5.What do people think about the use of the herbal drugs?

6.What is a new field, called “zoopharmacognosy”, based on?

7.What did Huffman and his colleagues discover?

8.What do the leaves of the plant contain?

9.What do the people of Africa use the plant called Vernonia?