New Books In Environmental Studies

Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature's pharmacy to heal themselves. Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves (Princeton University Press, 2025) reveals what researchers are now learning about the medical wonders of the animal world. In this visionary book, Jaap de Roode argues that we have underestimated the healing potential of nature for too long and shows how the study of self-medicating animals could impact the practice of human medicine. Drawing on illuminating interviews with leading scientists from around the globe as well as his own pioneering research on monarch butterflies, de Roode demonstrates how animals of all kinds--from ants to apes, from bees to bears, and from cats to caterpillars--use various forms of medicine to treat their own ailments and those of their relatives. We meet apes that swallow leaves to dislodge worms, sparrows that use cigarette butts to repel parasites, and bees that incorporate sticky resin