378 AZOTURIA. 



this urine is given to rapid chemical changes ; the products of 

 this change may possibly have much to do with the production 

 of many of the toxic symptoms characteristic of the affection. 



Symptoms. — These are invariably of an extremely sudden 

 and urgent character; there is no warning or premonitory 

 indications of either disturbed digestion or innervation, rather 

 the opposite, the animal immediately preceding the attack 

 being in the very acme of health and vigour. 



Although horses laid aside from work or active exercise and 

 regularly fed may have an attack while stationary in the 

 house, the greater number of seizures are in animals where 

 this rest and steady good feeding has been succeeded by work 

 or exercise ; that is, the period of a probable seizure is on being- 

 taken from the stable for exercise or Avork following some days 

 of idleness. On removal from the stable, the animal may pro- 

 ceed a very short distance — I have seen them travel only a 

 few hundred yards, at other times a few miles — when, seized 

 with an unaccountable lameness or difficulty in moving the 

 limb or limbs, generally the hind ones, they are with diffi- 

 culty got into their own or some convenient stable ; or they 

 may suddenly reel, lose control over their posterior extremities, 

 and come violently to the ground. Many of these very sudden 

 attacks, unless we bear in recollection the possible occurrence 

 of this disease and know the history of the case, are apt to bo 

 at first mistaken for some lesion of the spine or muscles of the 

 back or loins. Other cases, not so suddenly developing the 

 musculo-nervous symptoms, may, in the earliest stages of ill- 

 ness, give indications of colic ; they are restless, pawing with 

 the fore-feet, inclined to perspire, and exhibit a disposition to 

 lie down. It is when attempting to do this that we generally 

 observe the feebleness and want of motor-poAver in the hind- 

 limbs. Very shortly the more specially characteristic symptoms 

 show themselves, if they have not been observed from the outset. 

 These are tremors and spasmodic twitchings of the great muscles 

 of the loins and gluteal region, ultimately settling into tonic 

 contraction or more or less perfect loss of power ; together with 

 discharge of brown or coffee-coloured urine in normal or extra 

 amount. 



In the greater nimiber of cases, in the early stages, the pulso 

 will vary in frequency from sixty to sevent}' per minute, and 



