2o6 Veterinary Medicine. 



we have the suggestion of a bacteridian poison, or a toxic product 

 of bacteria. WilHaiiis and Reynal practical!}' agree on the point 

 that the common hgematuria is the result of anaemia. It has long 

 been noticed that the herds which suffer from the affection are 

 those which have come out of the winter in low condition, the 

 victim is the poor man's cow, and the symptoms are most likely 

 to appear when turned into the fields in spring before the pastures 

 have come up. The anaemic condition of the carcasses is quoted 

 in support of this view, but perhaps without making sufficient 

 account of the extraordinar}' destruction of blood globules during 

 the progress of the malady. 



Pichon and Sinoir see in the liming of soils and the production 

 of larger crops, a cause of anaemia in the rank and aqueous 

 growth of the meadows, and their overstocking in order to eat 

 them down, or to consume their products. They found that an 

 abundant artificial feeding was the most efficacious mode of 

 treatment. 



Reynal, who endorses this view, tells us that in the anaemic 

 and liquid blood the globules become smaller and can pass more 

 readily through the walls of the vessels. But this is exactly the 

 opposite effect from what we see when the blood is diluted with 

 water. The globules in such a case are distended and enlarged, 

 and may finally have their protoplasm and hsematin dissolved 

 and diffused through the liquid. If the blood globules are 

 shrunken, then we must look for a cau.se very different from 

 anaemia. 



Reynal further a.ssures us that plethora is a common cau,se of 

 haematuria in cattle. " Under the prolonged influence of a very 

 assimilable diet, the blood becomes more plastic, circulates with 

 difficulty in the capilaries, and may even rupture them, with a 

 resulting capillary renal haemorrhage, and blood}^ urine." He 

 further intimates that this occurs especially in spring after the 

 animals have been turned out on very rich pastures, and that in 

 Normandy certain pastures of unusual richness are notorious for 

 producing haematuria. 



Apart from the fact that the rich grasses of spring produce at 

 first intestinal congestion, and diarrhoea, with consequent disorder 

 of the liver and kidneys, this spring affection on particular pas- 

 tures suggests some .special poison in the pasture as the unknov^ai 

 cause of the disease. 



