DIY doc

Chiropractors are trained professionals who relieve body pain and tension by applying controlled pressure on and the spine, bones, joints and muscles. Dr. Joren Whitley, a chiropractor from Oklahoma, USA caters to patients with such conditions.

Recently, Whitley was called to a ranch to attend to a patient. Gerry could not chew because he had difficulty moving his jaw to the left.

The chiropractor worked on the huge neck of the tall patient. Its owner told The Washington Post that his giraffe’s chewing improved after Whitley’s adjustments, WBALTV reports.

Whitley — who has also treated dogs, chickens, even lions and a bat suffering from a similar condition — felt the giraffe’s big relief.

“He absolutely loved it. I mean he was rubbing all over me. He was licking me all over,” the chiropractor said, according to WBALTV.

Meanwhile, veterinary care was not even necessary in a case reported recently by the journal Scientific Reports.

When Rakus suffered a wound in his face at the Suaq Balimbing research area in Gunung Leuser National Park, Indonesia in June 2022, he treated it by chewing leaves from a climbing plant called Akar Kuning, repeatedly applying the juice to the cut, CNN reports.

While this manner of treatment is practiced by tribal doctors or shamans, Rakus’s case was different as it was the first time scientists observed an orangutan treat itself like that.

“This possibly innovative behavior presents the first report of active wound management with a biological active plant in a great ape species,” CNN quoted Isabelle Laumer, a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

Laumer wrote a report on the self-treating orangutan in Scientific Reports.