Editorial for the Special Issue “Veterinary Phytotherapy”

Special editions of Planta Medica focus on specific or current topics in the research areas of medicinal plants or natural products, mostly with regard to human therapeutic use. The present issue takes up a topic that has not yet been the focus of consideration in this journal, but definitely belongs here. Historically, veterinary phytotherapy is a twin sister of human phytotherapy with the same spectrum of methods and almost identical medicinal plants, often even with a longer tradition [1]. Until the end of World War II, medicinal plants had their place in the treatment of both farm animals and small animals in conventional medicine [2], [3]. Recent research shows that animals like apes, goats, and caterpillars even self-medicate with medicinal plants [4], [5]. Why was this field of research for a long time so overshadowed compared to medicinal plant and natural product research with a human therapeutic goal?

Publication History

Article published online:
30 March 2022

• References

• 1 Veterinary-Papyrus Kahun LV.2, 1850 BC Petrie Museum, University College London UC 32036.
• 2 Fröhner E. ed. Lehrbuch der Arzneimittellehre für Thierärzte. 5. Auflage. Stuttgart: Verlag von Ferdinand Enke; 1900
• 3 Steck W. Pharmakologie, Typoskript, created by Gross R. Bern, 1944 (Copy in the archive of the Swiss Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine).
• 4 Villalba JJ, Provenza FD. Self-medication and homeostatic behaviour in herbivores: learning about the benefits of natureʼs pharmacy. Animal 2007; 1: 1360-1370
• 5 Singer MS, Mace KC, Bernays EA. Self-medication as adaptive plasticity: increased ingestion of plant toxins by parasitized caterpillars. PLoS One 2009; 4: e4796