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Local people use the same plant—Dracaena cantleyi, an unremarkable-looking shrub with stalked leaves—to treat aches and pains. Morrogh-Bernard's co-authors at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Palacky University Olomouc and the Medical University of Vienna studied its chemistry. They added extracts from it to human cells that had been grown in a dish and had been artificially stimulated to produce cytokines, an immune system response that causes inflammation and discomfort. The plant extract reduced the production of several types of cytokines, the scientists reported in a study published last November in Scientific Reports.

The results suggest that orangutans use the plant to reduce inflammation and treat pain, says Jacobus de Roode, a biologist at Emory University, who was not involved in the study. Such findings could help identify plants and chemicals that might be useful for human medications, de Roode says.