Ethnoveterinary knowledge of farmers in bilingual regions of Switzerland - is there potential to extend veterinary options to reduce antimicrobial use?

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: In the pre-antibiotic era, a broad spectrum of medicinal plants was used to treat livestock. This knowledge was neglected in European veterinary medicine for decades but kept alive by farmers. Emergence of multidrug resistant bacterial strains requires a severely restricted use of antibiotics in veterinary medicine.

Ethnoveterinary contemporary knowledge of farmers in pre-alpine and alpine regions of the Swiss cantons of Bern and Lucerne compared to ancient and recent literature - Is there a tradition?

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The term "traditional" is well established in European (human) medicine and even appears in recent European regulations on herbal medicinal products connected to a simplified registration. In contrast, a scientific discussion of a Traditional European Veterinary Herbal Medicine is still lacking in spite of a rising interest, in herbal medicine for animals in particular of veterinarians. There is only limited systematic ethnoveterinary research in Europe, with exception of the Mediterranean region, Switzerland and Austria.

Swiss ethnoveterinary knowledge on medicinal plants - a within-country comparison of Italian speaking regions with north-western German speaking regions.

Background: Ethnoveterinary knowledge in Europe may play an important role as a basis for sustainable treatment options for livestock. Aims of our study were (a) to compare the ethnoveterinary practices of two culturally and sociodemographically different regions of Switzerland, (b) to compare results with earlier ethnoveterinary studies conducted in Switzerland and in adjacent Italian regions and, (c) to evaluate possible reasons for regional differences in European ethnoveterinary medicine.

Methods: 25 interviews were conducted in 2014 in all Italian speaking regions (ItR) of Switzerland, and 31 interviews were held in five north-western German speaking Cantons (GeC).