The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Experts want to hear old animal remedy secrets
Kew Gardens researchers seeking details of traditional plant-based animal cures
The oral tradition of animal healing is being recorded before it is lost to history.
An ambitious project by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew aims to collate the known, but unrecorded, curatives used in rural life for generations.
Backers want to hear from people in Tayside and Fife as part of the research.
Dr William Milliken, Research Leader – Diversity & Livelihoods at Kew, said: “Plants have been used for thousands of years in the British Isles to treat animals, or as feeds to improve their health.
“This information was passed from one generation to the next and was often not written down.
“How much of this knowledge remains in the population? The Ethnoveterinary Medicine Project aims to collect the remaining information before it is lost.”
Traditionally, for example, bog-bean was used as a medicine to unblock calves’ stomachs in the Hebrides, nettles boiled with oatmeal would be used to treat constipated cattle in Colonsay and ash branches were used as a laxative in goats in East Lothian.
Dr Milliken said: “For many years, scientists have collected information from farmers in India, Ethiopia and Uganda and have studied the effect on treating animals with these plants.
“This knowledge could also be used practically in animal management to improve their health and the economy.
“Over-use of antibiotics in veterinary use, for example, can generate antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
“Finding new plant-based treatments could also help support Soil Association Organic Standards, which restrict the use of antibiotics and chemically synthesised allopathic veterinary medicinal products...”
Anyone with information about ethnoveterinary medicines, feed supplements or other information relating to plants/fungi and animal health from the British Isles, can email ethnovet@kew.org or write to William Milliken, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Wakehurst Place, Ardingly, RH17 6TN.