2 ms·

Very interesting. It was around the same time as the discovery of penicillin. Were there other fungal medicines discover around that time? I believe statins

by KMag 6y ago

Very interesting. It was around the same time as the discovery of penicillin. Were there other fungal medicines discover around that time? I believe statins and Cyclosporine were discovered much later. A chemical from the fungus needed to react with a chemical from the clover. Either we got lucky (and the cows unlucky) that the fungus grew on the clover, instead of some plant with negligible amounts of coumarin, or else there are lots of other medically interesting combinations just out there in the environment that we haven't noticed because the necessary organisms don't interact often. Given the unimaginable numbers of naturally occurring biological chemicals out there, I'm guessing it wasn't luck, and the combinatorics made it inevitable. It's also interesting how an attempted suicide by rat poison led to demonstration of an effective treatment for overdose that eventually led to its use as a medicine. Though, minor nit about the second paragraph: a cow is a mature female bovine. I doubt any of the investigated deaths were cows that had undergone castration.

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mc32 6y ago
Maybe in ordinary conversation cow is like geese. A goose is female and a gander a male of geese but most people use goose for the kind of animal. Kids know what “cows say”, they’d look at you weird if you asked what do bulls (or cattle) say. But as you say, a castrated cow does sound odd.
- jfk13 6y ago
  "Cows" can be a general term. (Do you suppose cowboys only ever dealt with female cattle?) The Oxford English Dictionary specifically recognises this sense of "cows" (particularly in a U.S. context), complete with quotations that are very similar to the usage in this article: > c. plural. Cattle. U.S. > 1869 Overland Monthly Aug. 127/1 The ‘cow-whip’..is used only in driving the herd, which is often called ‘the cows’. > 1930 W. M. Raine & W. C. Barnes Cattle 60 Cows, as all cattle were called regardless of age and sex, were an investment which traveled on the hoof.

by KMag 6y ago

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mc32 6y ago

Maybe in ordinary conversation cow is like geese. A goose is female and a gander a male of geese but most people use goose for the kind of animal. Kids know what “cows say”, they’d look at you weird if you asked what do bulls (or cattle) say. But as you say, a castrated cow does sound odd.

jfk13 6y ago
"Cows" can be a general term. (Do you suppose cowboys only ever dealt with female cattle?) The Oxford English Dictionary specifically recognises this sense of "cows" (particularly in a U.S. context), complete with quotations that are very similar to the usage in this article: > c. plural. Cattle. U.S. > 1869 Overland Monthly Aug. 127/1 The ‘cow-whip’..is used only in driving the herd, which is often called ‘the cows’. > 1930 W. M. Raine & W. C. Barnes Cattle 60 Cows, as all cattle were called regardless of age and sex, were an investment which traveled on the hoof.