Animal Self-Medication Experiment using Estrildid Finches

Scientific Investigation

Of The Self-Medicative Behavior Of

Estrildid Finches

I am of course fully aware that my observations are not scientifically valid for the simple reason that you need proper biological controls as a standard of comparison. But this does not mean that my observations are automatically not valid. Far from it. All I am saying is that they need to go through scientific scrutiny. This is why I would like to contact scientists out there that would be interested in scientifically investigating my technique in the laboratory.

Until you as a scientist see a sick finch cure itself, I doubt whether you or your colleagues are going to take me seriously. The first time I saw a really sick finch cure itself, was one of the most remarkable and most unexpected experiences that I ever had in my life. I was convinced that the sick finch was going to die due to its immobile and really fluffed state. It only moved to eat or drink and then straightaway back to its perch and tuck its head in and remain immobile. And yet even in this desperately ill condition, it was able to correctly target antibiotics that cured it slowly but surely in a month.

I subsequently saw many finches cure themselves following my technique !! I have seen finches of various species successfully cure themselves of life-threatening diseases when they were ill with Trichomonas, Coccidia, Atoxoplasma, Bacterial infection, Megabacteria and Candida.

One case in particular sticks in my mind because it provides strong visible evidence that Estrildid finches can really cure themselves. I once had a Gouldian finch cock showing signs of twirling. Its body was twisted and it could not fly in the free flying bird room. I was surprised that it did not break any ribs since it fell like a stone when it tried to fly from a certain height. One of the causes of twirling is a fungal ear infection which Nystatin an antifungal can treat. When I placed the bird in a cage on its own, one of the medicines that I therefore made available to it was Nystatin. Lo and behold, I saw that it daily targeted the Nystatin and in about two weeks, its twirling was gone !! The bird was not twisted any more and could fly normally !! I know this is not scientific proof that the bird cured itself but this is enough evidence for me to urge both avian vets and medical research scientists to take what I am saying seriously.

One time where finches failed to cure themselves in my experience was when they had Salmonella which was not sensitive to available antibiotics I had at the time. I knew that these birds had Salmonella because of very distinctive droppings that are associated with this disease. There were also other times when finches failed to cure themselves altogether but this happened in relatively few cases. All I say is that I am honestly convinced that these birds can definitely target the correct medicines if these medicines are available in their environment.

The experiment will require clones of Zebra or Society finches or at least highly inbred ones which have very similar genetic fingerprints, that are not genetically immune to certain pathogens for the sake of the experiment.

I have been informed that only scientists with the required expertise of handling and experimenting with Zebra or Society finches can legally perform this experiment. If your lab actually uses the above birds in scientific experiments, and you have lab assistants that are trained in the care of these birds, please email me to discuss further details of the experiment.

If repeatable positive results are obtained from my proposed experiment, this will provide solid scientific evidence that:

1) Estrildid finches are able to correctly target appropriate medicines in their environment and as a result cure themselves of life-threatening diseases ( as opposed to relatively minor ailments like indigestion. )

2) Estrildid finches do not cure themselves on a purely random basis. This is because antibiotics which are relatively pathogen-specific and not herbs which typically have several antimicrobial or curative properties will be used in the experiment.

3) Estrildid finches possess the power to self-medicate in their genes and do not learn how to cure themselves from their parents or others in the flock through social learning ( like apes and chimpanzees are suspected of doing ).

May I say that I am all for treating animals kindly. But if there is no other way for us to be certain of how animals can cure themselves, it is surely ethical then to use animals for this purpose in scientific experiments as the one I suggest.

It is just like man colonizing new worlds. If there is no other way, people need to be ready to put their lives on the line and those of their livestock, in order to solve the many problems involved and learn what is out there. No pain, no gain as the saying goes. But the rewards could be fantastic.

The way I look at things is as follows:

If a scientific experiment is set up and solid scientific evidence is obtained for the above three statements / observations, then this will in turn open up a whole new field of knowledge.

For then we should be able to set up further experiments to determine how Estrildid finches are able to correctly target appropriate literally life-saving medicines in their environment.

If we find out how Estrildid finches are able to do this, then we should be able to build an electronic machine that will mimic this power. I would dub this machine the ZPC machine to reflect the root words of the compound word Zoo-Pharma-Cognosy.

It would then be possible for human patients whom Western medicine cannot cure, to use this machine and find out what medicines are appropriate out of a range in their environment to cure themselves with. And that could be in a hospital medicine chest or the Amazon tropical rain forest. It could also be possible for doctors to use this machine to fine-tune the doses of drugs to particular patients in order to prevent undesirable results.

The value of this electronic machine can really be appreciated when you consider that even after years of research and virtually unlimited funds, doctors have still not found drugs that will cure everyone that suffers from AIDS or every type of cancer.

Using such an electronic machine, pharmaceutical companies should be able to make fortunes finding cures for as yet incurable diseases or new diseases that will arise in the future. It is also likely that other unexpected uses will be found for the ZPC machine as the history of science shows when new scientific discoveries and inventions are made.