SYMPTOMS. 705 



require, by a complicated process, to be first separated from 

 the urine before being acted upon. Notwithstanding this 

 serious defect, it is, when taken along with other indications, of 

 a certain amount of value in forming an opinion as to the 

 origin of the icteric condition. 



Symptoms. — The great diagnostic symptoms of this state are 

 — (1) The yellow or saffron colour of the several solids and 

 fluids of the body ; (2) The absence of bile in the discharges 

 from the bowels. The change of colour is very early observed 

 in the urine, and the visible mucous membranes of the mouth 

 and eyes, the former having a distinct pasty feeling, and 

 frequently a disagreeable smell ; the urine from these cases, 

 when treated with strong nitric acid, gives in many, not in all, 

 a rather pretty iridescent play of colours. From the absence of 

 bile in the bowel the material voided is drier than natural, of 

 a light clay colour, and possessed of a pecuharly offensive 

 odoiu*. 



In many developments of simple jaundice unassociated with 

 fever, or other general disturbance, the horse at first shows few 

 symptoms which may be regarded as unnatural ; there may 

 be neither pyrexia nor pain, and the pulse will remain long 

 unaffected, while the appetite may even be good. In those 

 instances which follow general and febrile disorders there is 

 usually much constitutional disturbance, marked by elevation 

 of temperature, and a renewal of the symptoms of the previously 

 existing disease. When anorexia is a prominent feature there 

 is, accompanying this, much lassitude and exhaustion, the 

 animal being spiritless and disinchned to move. In some, 

 particularly where the disturbance has reached its height, we 

 may notice a dry scurfy and itchy state of the skin. Even when 

 these symptoms are well marked and cardiac implication is 

 manifest, it is rarely, if ever, that we observe in the horse those 

 very obvious toxic symptoms so conspicuous in man. These 

 latter are supposed to be owing to the circulation in the blood 

 either of bile acids, or products resulting from their decomposi- 

 tion, or to some deleterious substance formed in the hepatic 

 cells, or other products of tissue-change which are undergoing 

 further alteration previous to their removal from the body by 

 the kidneys, but which, from the absence of bile, are arrested 

 in their metamorphosis, and accumulating in the blood, act as 



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