CHAPTER VI. 



SELF-SUBMISSION BY ANIMALS TO MEDICAL AND SURGICAL 



TREATMENT continued. 



WHEN the lower animals, or certain of them, are ill, or dis- 

 abled, are in difficulty or danger, they do not necessarily 

 resort to man for assistance, even though human aid is at 

 hand and can be readily commanded. They not only treat 

 themselves but also each other, their young and their fellows 

 medically or medicinally, surgically and obstetrically. 



As regards, in the first place, medical or medicinal self- 

 treatment, certain animals, especially dogs and cats, use, for 

 their own benefit, and in their own way, various natural 

 medicines. They physic themselves and much more ration- 

 ally, it must be added, than the majority at least of civilised 

 men or women do. The commonest forms of medicines so 

 employed are emetics and purgatives in the shape of various 

 grasses and other common native plants. 



Several grasses get the credit of being eaten, or chewed 

 simply, by dogs for the sake of their emetic action; and two 

 at least apparently derive their specific names from this use 

 of them by the dog agrostis canina and triticum caninum. 

 George E. Jesse describes a so-called ' dog-grass ' cynosurus 

 cristatus as the natural medicine of the dog, acting both as 

 an emetic and purgative and used when it suffers from indi- 

 gestion or other forms of illness. Porteous describes another 

 6 dog-grass ' triticum caninum as among the Lowthers in 

 Scotland, f a quick vomit for, and eagerly eaten at times by, 

 dogs ; ' and he adds that sheep are fond of it in a snow 

 storm, but that ' it has not the same effect upon them.' 

 That pet dogs eat grass if they have opportunity is an every- 



