Chimps Use Medicinal Plants to Perform First Aid on Their Friends

Medical care might not be a uniquely human invention after all. Scientists have now documented wild chimpanzees in Uganda using medicinal plants to treat their own wounds—and, in some cases, to care for the injuries of others.

The study, published this week in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, documented 41 cases of wound care in wild chimpanzees. Most were self-applied: chimps chewing leaves and pressing them into injuries. But seven instances involved chimps tending to each other—sometimes licking wounds, sometimes applying plants, and sometimes helping individuals they weren’t even related to.

“They’re capable of identifying others in need and then addressing those specific needs,” said lead author Elodie Freymann, a postdoc at the University of Oxford. “Animals are helping each other out.”

Chimps Are Healing Their Injured Friends With Leaves

Fewer than half the care-giving incidents involved close relatives, which suggests the behavior goes beyond basic survival instincts. It may reflect a deeper social awareness—something closer to empathy. And it’s not unique to chimps. Orangutans have been observed chewing and applying medicinal plants to wounds, and in Gabon, chimpanzees have used crushed insects, possibly as anti-inflammatory treatment.

“Chimpanzees rely on the forest, not just for food, and not just for shelter, but really as a medicine cabinet,” Freymann said.

Freymann spent months in Uganda’s Budongo Forest logging chimp behavior, combining her field notes with decades of archived observations. “When people pool their results and their observations, you can start seeing these amazing stories kind of come into view,” she said.

The findings raise new questions about how far back these behaviors go. “It’s likely that our shared common ancestor also would have been capable of these care behaviors,” Freymann noted—suggesting that the roots of health care might predate humans entirely.

“This is important evidence that could open a window into our humanity’s past,” said primatologist Alessandra Mascaro, who wasn’t involved in the study.

And through that window, we see something surprisingly familiar—a species using plants to relieve pain, reduce inflammation, and care for others, not for profit but simply because it helps.

Humans didn’t invent medical care. We just gave it insurance codes and made it expensive. Meanwhile, chimpanzees are out here doing community-based health care in the forest, no co-pay required.