Extreme underdevelopment: Woman buried to death in cow shit to "heal" snake bite

[Lucasxp64]

https://nypost.com/2018/05/02/woman-suffocates-under-pile-of-cow-dung-to-treat-snake-bite

Quote

A 35-year-old woman in India was bitten by a snake while collecting wood. A local healer told her family that covering her in cow shit would pull the snake's poison out of her body.

Her husband completely buried her under a heavy pile of cow shit, but she could not breathe and died.

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I'm sorry for posting this, but I'm truly shocked.

It's almost impossible for me to believe that people can be this stupid.

😢😭😭

 

 

Edited September 21 by Lucasxp64

[Ajay0]

On 9/21/2026 at 8:09 PM, Lucasxp64 said:

https://nypost.com/2018/05/02/woman-suffocates-under-pile-of-cow-dung-to-treat-snake-bite

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I'm sorry for posting this, but I'm truly shocked.

It's almost impossible for me to believe that people can be this stupid.

 

In some parts of rural India with rugged terrain cut off from access to high tech hospital facilities in the cities and towns, there are  traditional healers and so on who indulge in some healing practices , some of which are valid and some are essentially superstitious. 

In traditional medical systems of India like Ayurveda and Siddha also, there are herbal medicines and treatment methods for snakebites, but which were not sought for treatment by the person in question. 

All cities and towns in India have super-speciality hospitals but the challenge for the Indian government is to ensure the same in inaccessible rural areas or clinics or  rapid evacuation from rural to good hospitals in urban areas.

I remember reading of hikers in the west injured after animal attacks or fire and dying due to blood loss before they were evacuated by air to faraway good hospitals.  So such challenges are present around the world.

In India, cows are considered sacred due to their economic output in an agrarian society .

It is possible that ancient Indian ayurvedic physicians noted correlations between cows and immunity to small-pox, and this could have led to the widespread presence of cows in Indian cities and villages since ancient times.

This prevented the spread  of small-pox in India for milleniums while it was rampaging and causing heavy casualties around the world till small pox vaccinations came into being in 1796.  

Edited September 24 by Ajay0

[Ulax]

Reminds me of that fucked up Indian case of a ceiling fan ritual which ended in the whole family dying.

[Ajay0]

India's medical tourism market had reached 8.7 billion dollars in 2025 , and is expected to reach 16.2 billion dollars by 2030.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-medical-tourism-healthcare-tourist-visa-cheap-surgery-treatment-11763707

https://medicalbuyer.co.in/india-medical-tourism-market-to-hit-usd-53683-7m/

https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/health/how-british-patient-swapped-a-3-year-nhs-wait-for-knee-surgery-in-india-and-saved-26000-101786428125654.html

https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/us/american-woman-praises-india-s-healthcare-says-us-system-makes-patients-go-into-debt-101774713451817.html

Most of our customers come from the west due to spiralling healthcare costs of a bankrupting nature and which cost only a fraction in India. Long waiting lists are also a problem over there. 

I remember reading the interview of a retired American academic who decided to live the remainder of his life in India. His reasoning was that his savings would be wiped out in a few years in the US post-retirement due to the high costs of living there, while it enabled him to lead a comfortable life in India with dignity and grace for the remainder of his life due to inexpensive healthcare.

 He eventually died at the age of 88,  getting adequate medical and healthcare treatment in India.

Edited September 24 by Ajay0

[Lucasxp64]

On 24/09/2026 at 2:31 AM, Ajay0 said:

His reasoning was that his savings would be wiped out in a few years in the US

I'm from Brazil. And I think the US is a economic trap if I have location independent income or high net worth but not high enough. Someone can just do geographic arbitrage and get a increase in lifestyle quality. But the US is also a lot of fun, it's a whole continent with a lot of interesting people... But for a retiree it makes no sense, or someone building some location independent business where we can target high paying Americans anyways.

The USA has high paying local economy, but they will leech off from you just as much in a predatory manner.

Edited Saturday at 04:20 PM by Lucasxp64

[Jacob Morres]

Just want to bring my pov, just want to say that the media and public like to take the craziest anamolies in India and paint the country like it's some depraved place - even when something like that is hyper rare

While some of the stories are real, you can find weird stuff anywhere in all countries

Here is a brazillian influencer doing the same thing

https://youtu.be/CJsQV_7zwrc?is=kwjxH_8s4Zx5aDto

I've never even heard of something like this until today - and 99.99% dont engage in things like that. It feeds into some people's pre-existing beliefs about the country even though most of the country does not engage in that 

But @Ajay0 had a good response and a healthier pov on the same situation

Edited Sunday at 05:56 PM by Jacob Morres

[Joseph Maynor]

Paranoid people seem to have extreme underdevelopment to me.  Not to be rude.  I get that they can't control this.

[PsychedelicEagle]

Stage Purple move.

[OBEler]

@Jacob Morres Good point. Like china you can always find the most underdeveloped people doing crazy stuff. And of course that gets viral.

 

[Yimpa]

Holy Shit, indeed.

[Ajay0]

India has made giant strides in Robotic telesurgery, and this is considered to be a vital technology that can close capability gaps in far flung medical clinics in rural India inexpensively.

SSI Mantra is India's first  tele-robotic system which enables surgeries in faraway regions by specialist doctors based in cities and towns. 

The SSI Mantra was used by an Indian origin doctor in Guyana in 2026  to perform the world's longest robot assisted cardiac telesurgery across 20000 km between Guyana and India. Prior to this two of the world's first two robotic telesurgeries were also conducted in India as well.

https://www.pratidintime.com/health/india-sets-record-with-worlds-first-robotic-cardiac-telesurgeries-8609543

An Indian gynaecologist (Dr. Ashima Taneja) also performed 50 robotic gynaecological surgeries in 38 operating days in the year 2024, using a single SSI Mantra Robotic Surgical System and has set a new world record for International Book of Records.

Similarly the  SSI Mantra M3 system was used by an Indian doctor in 2025 to perform the world's first long-distance robotic bariatric telesurgery.

There are also SSI Mantra  units of a mobile and portable nature unit built onto a heavy vehicle chassis and which is designed to bring remote robotic surgical capabilities directly to rural and underserved doorsteps and inaccessible regions due to harsh terrain. 

So  dynamic advances in robotic technology is being harnessed to plug medical capability gaps in rural and far flung areas as well with minimal expense and which can also reduce the financial, logistical and emotional strain in the patient.

The Gurugram based World Laparoscopy Hospital in India also recently set a world record by training a thousand surgeons and gynaecologists from 108 countries in robotic surgery as well.

https://medicalbuyer.co.in/wlh-sets-new-world-record-trains-1000-doctors-in-robotic-surgery/

https://theprint.in/india/robotic-surgery-poised-to-transform-healthcare-beyond-indias-metro-cities-expert/2908046/

All these world records are proof that we are moving in the right direction in plugging medical capability gaps in rural and far flung areas.

Edited 3 hours ago by Ajay0

[Leo Gura]

17 hours ago, Yimpa said:

Holy Shit, indeed.

In India cows are holy so their shit must be holy too.

[Ajay0]

24 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

In India cows are holy so their shit must be holy too.

Yeah, I am really glad that cowdung and natural herbicides are used in organic farming in India, as opposed to chemical fertilizers and pesticides which are responsible for higher rates of cancer, dementia and neurological disorders throughout the world. 

All that hype with respect to so-called scientific  chemical pesticides is fortunately dying out due to clear evidence and documentation of their correlation to diseases.

 

[Leo Gura]

India probably has more pesticides than America.

[Ajay0]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

India probably has more pesticides than America.

Yeah, there was a short-sighted trend in India stating that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are scientific by the modernists, and should be used instead of yucky  cowdung so as to look cool and modern.

Fortunately, the natural traditions of organic farming survived the onslaught and soldiered on in India, and now India has the second largest area under cultivation in the world in organic farming. 

It was the first ranked, but got overtaken by Australia after it became known that dementia is the highest killer in australia with correlation between the disease and use of pesticides noted.

https://medicolegalexpress.com.au/pesticide-exposure-leading-to-parkinsons-disease/

[Leo Gura]

@Ajay0 Well, I wish you guys success in your organic farming.

Edited 3 hours ago by Leo Gura