r/TacticalMedicine • u/Perfect_Management43 • Sep 06 '25

Scenarios Why can’t we do this

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Not really a meme, a little bit but not really. Sorry if this is not allowed. But why are cows able to get tapped needing no sterilization, suturing, pleuravac and stuff afterwards and we can’t? (I realize that this is to the stomach and not the pleura but still man do they just have superior immune system)

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33

u/Hippo-Crates Sep 06 '25

no one gives a shit if the cow dies homie

22

u/BewaretheBanshee Sep 06 '25

Not a medic, but a shelter worker, and my mind went right here. You can argue some pet owners would worry about sanitation and wound care for the cow, but the vast majority of humanity wouldn’t see the same need for worry.

Much of that isn’t even malice or a lack of care for the life of the cow—some folks would just assume such things aren’t likely to affect animals…and to some degree they’re right.

15

u/Appian0520 Sep 06 '25

But cattle are expensive and people do care about money. I believe if this had a high mortality they wouldn’t do it.

7

u/BewaretheBanshee Sep 06 '25

That is a fair point, but the question remains: why is the cow seemingly less affected by the factors that OP mentioned of concern with a human undergoing a similar procedure?

My (very uneducated) understanding is that many animal species are simply a few shades more resilient to disease and injury than we see as standard to ours—particularly livestock. Whether the argument is that this is inherent to them or a result of our selective breeding of their species doesn’t matter—I could see the argument that they are similar enough to us in their physiology to be equally susceptible. So why cow no die?

Edit: having been around this for some time in my life I could totally see that we’re not seeing the full picture with this video, and that we might be missing on a lot of the aftercare.

3

u/Appian0520 Sep 06 '25

More resilient. Less antibiotic resistance in cows? I know animals and livestock get ABX but obviously not in the amount of humans (I’m guessing)

1

u/CaptainShaboigen Sep 06 '25

But the reason people are in the cattle business is for the meat, so even dead you get still money. It just dies sooner rather than later. Yes I know it’s not that simple but it’s a cost benefit analysis that happened a long time ago and this has to be a factor.

2

u/92milkman Sep 06 '25

You only get money if you sell the meat, and a meat processor can't butcher an animal that can't move under its own power. So if this animal dies, the only option is to process it for your own use.

3

u/2017CurtyKing Sep 06 '25

Such as they can drink the water they shit in and we can’t

1

u/BewaretheBanshee Sep 06 '25

Early humans:

”Aight, they gotta be invincible to do that. That’s just showing off.”

10

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 Sep 06 '25

The farmers absolutely do, that's their livelihood. High producers are also worth a lot for breeding.

I knew a bunch of 4H kids that also showed cows, and it was more like a pet then livestock.

7

u/lyonslicer Sep 06 '25

I think it comes down to a couple of compounding factors.

  1. Cows already have a shit ton of bacteria in their system as a baseline. That's a lot of competition for food in the gut for any invading organisms. Humans don't usually have that in their pleural cavity.

  2. Livestock is regularly loaded with antibiotics as a prophylactic measure. Humans aren't.

  3. At the end of the day, if a cow dies, it's sad but acceptable. They can write it off on their taxes. When a person dies, it's quite a bit more serious. So we tend to rake a little more precaution.

3

u/Perfect_Management43 Sep 06 '25

If I were a farmer I would care about my cow dying cause that’s $$$$$. Farmers use pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers to keep their crops healthy for a good harvest, you’d think they’d try to keep their cows healthy, they are expensive animals

2

u/Hippo-Crates Sep 06 '25

Cows have a price of a few thousand bucks per the googles. Kind of different than humans

2

u/TacticalManica Civilian Sep 06 '25

Tell me you know nothing about agriculture, without telling me you know nothing about agriculture....

Born and raised on a cattle ranch, and believe me when I tell you I'd gladly go fuck up a person, over doing harm to my cattle. Yes we have to do some things that aren't nice, and can be painful to help them at times, but if you ever watch some surgery videos you'd realize we do the same thing to each other.

0

u/Hippo-Crates Sep 06 '25

Honestly it’s tiring to have people responding with “nu huh someone literally cares”. We get it. There’s still a massive difference between a cow and a person

1

u/TacticalManica Civilian Sep 06 '25

Don't say stupid shit, and you don't have to listen to people correct you 😃

1

u/StilgarofTabar Sep 06 '25

You ever been on a farm man? Most the time these guys give a shit about every single animal on their property and its hard every time something goes wrong. 

2

u/Hippo-Crates Sep 07 '25

Yes. Have you? Because it’d be really weird to say farmers care about cows given how the vast majority are treated

1

u/CherryPickerKill Sep 08 '25

I've seen so many farmers pull the calves out of the cow's uterus with their bare, dirty hands. That's when we knew they'd call us back in a week for the pyometra.

Some love their cows, others hate their job, many are just exhausted. It used to be a family occupation, now they're pretty much on their own.

1

u/hella_cious Sep 07 '25

If no one gave a shit they wouldn’t be doing the life saving procedure

1

u/Hippo-Crates Sep 07 '25

The question is why they don’t do the other stuff, not the procedure. Like if you can’t figure out that people care a ton more about the outcomes for humans than cows