English Reflections 3

I refer to the article ‘TCM for wildlife patients at the zoo’
(http://news.asiaone.com.sg/a1news/20070518_story9_1.html)

This article mainly talks about how the great use of traditional Chinese medicine could help many animals of the Singapore zoo in Singapore. Instead of taking the animals for cruel experiments, they used TCM to help much wildlife including Ah Meng the orangutan. The zoo has been using this approach ever since 1994 and the results of them are decent. This approach has no side effects unlike the most of the western drugs. On a side note, it also talks about the difference of sick animals and humans. Lastly, with all the positive results as shown in the article, it recommends pet owners to try out the TCM approach when they are sick the next time.


In my opinion, I think that this showed the good side of TCM when it benefits the wildlife. In the past there are always wildlife suffering for the research of TCM and they sometimes even paid their lives for the production of TCMs. Now that even animals themselves can benefit from it, it showed that TCM is also not a total ‘bad’ guy after all.

Also in my personal opinion, I think this also shows that the zoo actually cares very much for the welfare of the wildlife. For instance as they approached, the turf club for opinion as a pony is suffering from guttaral pouch disease. As the turf club gave an idea of drilling a hole in its nose, they chose not to use it as it will affect the pony with its traumatic process. Instead they tried with TCM as it causes not as much pain to the pony. And in this case, regardless whether which solution would be more effective, the fact that the zoo prioritize on the wildlife’s welfare shows that they are true to the animals.

Lastly, in the animals’ perspective, this method of curing illnesses was certainly a great help. It saves them pain from unbearable operations and in a way that even they not feel anything by just simply eating their food (contains TCM). Hence as the method is painless, credit goes to TCM again. After all, who likes pain?

In support of TCM for this approach, I strongly recommend pet owners to take up this method as it only benefits animals without any harmful side effects.