Ethnoveterinary botanical medicine in South Africa: A review of research from the last decade (2009 to 2019).

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) practices remain a common feature of South African animal husbandry, particularly in rural livestock healthcare. This review provides an update of research undertaken on South African EVM from 2009 until 2019. AIM OF THE STUDY: This review collates information and investigates trends in the increasing field of EVM research in South Africa over the last decade. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A literature search was conducted using available databases including ScienceDirect, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar. Dissertations, theses, books and technical reports were also searched. RESULTS: In the past decade, ethnoveterinary surveys conducted in South Africa report the use of 139 plants from 50 families used against 21 animal diseases and conditions. Leaves, roots and bark have remained popular plant parts used for EVM. In terms of livestock species reported, the major focus was on cattle, goats and poultry. Only four of the nine provinces in the country have been surveyed. CONCLUSIONS: Relatively few publications reporting on ethnoveterinary surveys have originated from South Africa. These papers refer to many plants used for a variety of commonly encountered animal diseases and afflictions. With reference to recently published guidelines on conducting ethnobotanical surveys, several recommendations can be made to improve the robustness of surveys documenting the use of plants for EVM in South Africa.

Comparison of veterinary drugs and veterinary homeopathy: part 1.

For many years after its invention around 1796, homeopathy was widely used in people and later in animals. Over the intervening period (1796-2016) pharmacology emerged as a science from Materia Medica (medicinal materials) to become the mainstay of veterinary therapeutics. There remains today a much smaller, but significant, use of homeopathy by veterinary surgeons. Homeopathic products are sometimes administered when conventional drug therapies have not succeeded, but are also used as alternatives to scientifically based therapies and licensed products. The principles underlying the veterinary use of drug-based and homeopathic products are polar opposites; this provides the basis for comparison between them. This two-part review compares and contrasts the two treatment forms in respect of history, constituents, methods of preparation, known or postulated mechanisms underlying responses, the legal basis for use and scientific credibility in the 21st century. Part 1 begins with a consideration of why therapeutic products actually work or appear to do so.

[The veterinary pharmacopoeia of Peter Bodmer, blacksmith and cattle doctor in Därligen 1836]. / Das Arzneibuch des Peter Bodmer, Schmied und Vieharzt in Därligen 1836.

The manuscript entitled "My pharmacopoeia Peter Bodmer in Därligen--1836" [Arzeneybuch mein Peter Bodmer in Därligen pro. 1836] contains a collection of a total of 227 remedies for the treatment of cattle, horses, pigs and human beings. The author Peter Bodmer was born on 15 November 1811 in Därligen on the shores of Lake Thun and worked as a smith and a cattle doctor. The manuscript cannot offer a full overview of the therapeutic possibilities in veterinary medicine at that time. The remedies mainly describe the peroral dispensing of herbal preparations. The use of medicinal plants, however, would only partially measure up to modern phytotherapy. Bodmer's manuscript provides a certain insight into the traditional herbal folk remedies used on animals and humans in the rural Bernese Oberland at that time.