232 Veteri7iary Medicine. 



Suppurative inflammation of the mucosa lining the renal pelvis 

 maj7 occur in the acute or chronic form. 



Causes. It may be either primary or secondary. As a primary 

 disease it may be the result of poisoning by irritant diuretics such 

 as cantharides, turpentine, colchicum or balsams, or shoots of the 

 coniferae, it may be due to the passage of the irritant products of 

 cryptogams found in musty fodder or grain, or it may come from 

 the irritation caused by the toxins of bacteria developed in the 

 system or in food or drink. Cases that develop from the irritation 

 of a pelvic calculus or precipitate, and from the presence of the 

 strongylus gigas (in dogs) may also be placed in this class. 



As secondary causes are those in which the inflammation start- 

 ing in the uriniferous tubes extends down to and implicates the 

 pelvis, and the still more frequent instances of extension of puru- 

 lent infection upward from the ureter, bladder or prostate, so as to 

 involve the pelvis. So in blocking of the urethra by strongylus, 

 stricture, clot or calculus, and in spasm of the sphincter vesicae, 

 the delayed urine is liable to undergo fermentation with evolution 

 of ammonia, and not only the bladder but the ureter and renal 

 pelvis may suffer. Again, the occurrence in the kidney of the 

 hyperplasia of cancer, glanders (horse) and tuberculosis (cow) 

 may be the direct cause of pyelitis. Similarly foci of infection in 

 the kidney may be found in distemper in the dog, and in the con- 

 tagious pneumonia and influenza of the horse. In man infection 

 from the bowel through the migration of the bacillus coli com- 

 munis to the devitalized kidney and contents in hydronephrosis, 

 has been traced, and the liability to this must be still greater after 

 the surgical insertion of the ureters in the rectum as a substitute 

 for the obliterated bladder and urethra. Again, in the intra'-ar- 

 terial migrations of the strongylus (sclerostoma) armatus pus 

 microbes may be carried to the kidney and reach the pelvis. 



Symptoms. These are in the main those of nephritis with 

 marked rigors. The presence of pus cells and albumen in the 

 urine may come from suppuration in the substance of the kidney 

 itself, or sub-capsular abscess opening into the pelvis, or it may 

 come from cystitis, prostatitis or urethritis. The special stiffness 

 and tenderness of the loins, polyuria in which the liquid is puru- 

 lent, but free from uriniferous casts, and in which it is charged 

 with the spheroidal epithelium of the pelvis (not the columnar of 



