Traditional medicine has long relied on animal studies to establish the science of its treatment modalities. Philippine alternative medicine provides another contrast. Philippine herbs, long established in the folklore of healing, has found new interest in its application to animal health with ongoing ethnoveterinary studies and projects on livestock and small animals.
This section on Philippine Herbs and Animals is a compilation done by M. Leila Santiago-Flores, a practicing veterinarian in Los Baños. The compilation is on herbal use in small animals, sourced from published articles, unpublished theses, and interviews.
It underscores the widening interest in the use of Philippine herbs. Hopefully, it provides another avenue for the merging of traditional and alternative medicine, as positive results confirm and find renewed applications for human use. In the meantime, alas, some veterinarian alternativists are likely to`suffer the scorn of some traditionalist practitioners denigrating them as "animal-bularyos."
