The title asks the question.
Just wondering if any animals were known for attempting any kind of medical care - perhaps bringing some medicinal foods, or attempting to lick a wound to clean it, or perhaps getting together to warm the injured animal or whatever.
I know many animals experience obvious grief when one of their offspring dies, but just wondered if there were any studies that showed more proactive (and perhaps successful) attempts to save/cure one of their own.
This is an anecdote. It is not data, nor did this occur in a scientific setting. I am not a scientist, and I may be anthropomorphizing or misinterpreting animal behavior.
I had 3 pet rats, which are extremely smart and sociable little animals. One day I was playing with one of them, Neko, when a little dog who was visiting my house attacked her. He snatched her out of my hand and when I screamed, he dropped her. She was very startled, and passed out. I tried to comfort her, but she was unresponsive. I put her back in her cage with her cagemates, Zooey and Phoebe. They came to check on her, and discovered she was alive, but passed out, although she was beginning at this point to return to a dazed conscienceless. I watched Zooey and Phoebe bring up* bits of tissue and fabric they like to nest with, and make a nest around her. They groomed her, and brought her food, and doted over her until she was up and back on her feet. It took about two hours, and they cared after her the whole time.
Again, I am not a scientist. But in my opinion, they were without question providing her with medical care. It was startling to me. All of my rats are dead now (old age and mammary tumors, which are very common in female rats), but at the end of their lives, they also cared for one another. When Zooey had trouble getting up and down the ladders, I saw Phoebe bring her food. They were very close to one another, and Phoebe made a large nest downstairs which she shared with Zooey, and kept a food stash in there for her. When Zooey’s tumor became large, and interfered with her ability to groom herself, Phoebe helped her. They all cared for each other, and in my opinion showed unmistakable signs of sadness and mourning when a cagemate passed. It was very touching.
*the cage had several levels, and Neko was at the top
I’ve seen both mice and dogs make determined efforts to clean out the ear of a regular companion who was suffering an ear infection.
It’s possible that the awkward posture of the animal with the ear infection (with the neck slightly twisted so the ear was pointing up) just mimicked the ‘request for ear grooming’ posture though, I’m not sure.
Sure, have you never seen a mother dog licking a hurt puppy? Other mammals will do the same for their offspring. I have little doubt that among the more social, cooperative mammals this sort of licking of wounds will also go on among adult pack (or herd, pride, or whatever) mates. (I would guess it is more likely to be seen amongst co-operatively hunting carnivores, who need each other, than amongst herd living herbivores, who although they live in large groups, do not really have to help each other to feed.)
Elephants, maybe. I recall seeing a video of the entire herd of elephants at a zoo (only 4-5) come charging out to help a young elephant calf crying for help after it had got it’s leg stuck in a tire swing.
It’s not really medial care, but it shows the same mindset.
For the curious, they were able to get the calf out with some pulling on the calf, others on the swing … the tire finally stretched enough for the calf’s leg to slip free.
Saber-tooths apparently did, at least to the extent of bringing food to the injured. The fossilized bones of a saber-tooth that had been much too severely injured to hunt were found partially healed; the other saber-tooths apparently brought food to it long enough for that to happen.
Also, I note this from the Wiki article on animal self-medication (Zoopharmacognosy):
Underlining mine.
A common anecdote holds that dolphins will help another injured dolphin by holding it up with its head above water so it can breathe.
Cite: E. O. Wilson, in his book Sociobiology, claims this, along with a picture (a drawing, not a photograph) of a dolphin with a harpoon sticking out if it, being held up at the surface of the water by two other dolphins.
ETA: Is dolphins are so smart, why don’t they pull that harpoon out?
One of my cats is prone to eye infections, and the ointment for it is often difficult to find and can lead to antibiotic resistance. The vet encourages us to give it a couple of days to clear on its own…with the help of the other cat. She’ll lick his face more than is usual for them, paying extra attention to the infected eye. 4 times out of 5, she can clear it up for him without us having to resort to antibiotics.
Does his weeping eye taste good? Does she know her licking may help relieve his suffering, or is she licking for her own benefit? No idea. But she sure hates the ointment. Once that is on, she gives us the dirtiest looks, and won’t lick his face for a few days.
I wanted to say, because I found it interesting (maybe you will too!) that my rats weren’t cooperative generally. When they were all healthy (which was obviously the vast majority of the time) they seemed to really enjoy fucking with each other and weren’t particularly helpful at all. Which is why it was so astonishing and touching to me when they did help each other; it seemed obvious that it was a reaction to the distress. For example, they played together, but they kept separate areas of the cage as their own, and kept separate stashes of food. When I fed them, they would fight over the best things, and then would hide their food, but they would also constantly break into each other’s stash and steal the food from there. While Zooey would be stealing from Neko, Neko was stealing from Phoebe, who was in Zooey’s spot stealing from her. It was pretty funny to watch, but it made it all the more remarkable when Phoebe created a joint stash next to the nest she made for Zooey and kept it stocked for her. She would actually offer Zooey the best food, because near the end of her life Zooey stopped eating much. I really think Phoebe was trying to tempt her to eat more out of concern for her health.
Another point of interest, we euthanized our rats at home. There are several reasons we decided to do that, most of which are irrelevant (although if anyone cares I can discuss it). Anyway, one reason was so the rats could see their cagemate after she’d died. After witnessing their concern for each other, I thought it would be cruel if one day their friend simply disappeared. Zooey was the first one we put down, and after she passed we allowed Phoebe and Neko (and a fourth rat added much later, Pepper) to see her body, hoping they would understand on some level what had happened. Pepper sniffed her a bit, and then became distracted by other things. Neko spent a bit longer looking her over. But Phoebe was very upset by the loss of her best friend. She inspected her all over, and licked her face. She pushed the body with her nose and paws and seemed to be trying to revive Zooey. When Phoebe realized there was nothing else to do (a process which took about 10 minutes, and lasted far longer than Pepper of Neko’s interest) she laid down beside her friend for a bit. Then she got up, and went back to her cage, but she never went back into the igloo nest she’d built to share with Zooey. When we cleaned the cage a couple days later, it still had all the old food in there, but Phoebe had found a new spot and created a new stash. Again, I know it sounds like anthropomorphizing, but I really believe she was too saddened by her friend’s death to return to their shared nest.
She lost interest in playing or eating much after Zooey died, and died in her sleep a couple weeks later.
My SO’s cats did this, one kept getting ear infections. I doubt it tasted good, it smelled rank! You couldn’t have paid me to lick that ear, so Bram was definitely a better person than I am. 
I’m not sure if this is an example, but Misty, our lab when I was young, would always check over her two sons. Especially if they’d been out on a long walk or picking up, she would go over them and lick any scrapes and pick the sticky burrs out of their fur. She died only after seeing to her sons that day.
It’s more like grooming, but now I’m wondering about the distinction between grooming and medical care. Isn’t de-fleeing the way monkeys do also sort of medical care?
I think we can consider grooming, licking wounds, and other nurturing behaviors as “medical care,” given the abysmal state of human medical care until quite recently. No animal has conducted an MRI to date, but then again, humans bled George Washington to death not so long ago on an evolutionary scale. 
Lassie would set broken bones and suture wounds.
other animals would just lick.
I used to have a sharpei that hated my cat. One day the cat came home after being missing for a week with dried blood caked all over his face and a broken jaw. I put her in a chair to rest and first thing in the morning a trip to the vet. My sharpei stayed with her the entire night licking the blood and dried leaves of of her as gentle as anyone could imagine. After that incident they actually became closer.
Odd anecdote from the horse world, with no conclusions on my part:
Horses don’t generally lick themselves or others the way dogs and cats do - as a comfort and cleaning routine. A mare will lick her foal dry, but other than that, usually horses groom each other by nibbling and scrubbing with their front teeth. If a particularly oral horse enjoys licking another it’s always on the head, neck, or upper body.
I had my horse boarded out, and he lived in a pasture with several others. He had one or two buddies that he hung around with, and BamBam was my horse’s shadow, followed him everywhere. One day I came to ride and as I drove down the driveway I saw Keogh (my guy) and BamBam hanging by the gate. B was standing right next to K’s hind end, with his nose right near the ground. Unusual posture for a horse that isn’t eating, and they were standing on dirt.
When I got my gear and went out to the pasture they were still standing like that, and I realized that B was licking K’s hind fetlock (ankle), very steadily and deliberately. Neither one had moved since I’d driven past either. I went in and looked, and K had a big open slice on his fetlock, and B had been licking it! He’d apparently been at it for a while too, the wound was perfectly clean, and K’s ankle was wet from all the licking. Thanks BamBam! Made my job easier 
I’ve had horses for eons, worked in boarding stables, and made a career out of horses. I of course have seen horses come in from the field with open wounds - it happens. But I’ve never seen another horse apparently deliberately lick a wound like a dog would. I really don’t know what to make of it, but it was interesting to say the least!
No less than Jane Goodall recounted two cases of chimpanzees caring for their sick.
In one case, an illness (I forget what) left a chimp she named MacGregor with paralyzed legs. He was unable to get food for himself. Almost all the other chimps shunned MacGregor. But one male, who Goodall had previously described as ‘MacGregor’s best friend’, took care of him. He got extra food for him and attended to his other needs.
One male chimp was pathologically dependent on his mother. He continued to rely on her for food and piggyback rides long into adulthood. When she died, he fell into a deep depression. He would not even get up to get food. His sister attempted to care for him and get him to be more active.
I can’t remember the species (it may have been triceratops), but in the nineties I read an article stating that normal mating in this species sometimes resulted in a fractured or broken spine in the female. Some specimens showed females had suffered these injuries and healed. There was no way they could have gotten food or fended off predators on their own. The conclusion was that they must have been cared for by others of their species.
I almost forgot bats. It’s long been known that when a vampire bat is sick or injured and unable to leave the roost to feed, another adult will go out and drink extra blood, return to the roost, and vomit the meal down their friend’s throat.
Yeah, but Lassie was also a skilled brain surgeon, not to mention her side hobby of doing advanced research, with many accomplishments published under the pseudonym of “Wernher Von Braun”.
Did you know that Lassie was also one of the 70 translators of the Septuagint?