136 DISEASES OF CATTLE, SHEEP, GOATS, ETC. 



DIURESIS (POLYURIA, DIABETES INSIPIDUS, EXCESSIVE SECRETION OP 



URINE) . 



A secretion of urine in excess of the normal amount may be 

 looked on as disease, even if the result does not lead to immediate loss 

 of condition. Cattle fed on distillery swill are striking examples of 

 such excess caused by the enormous consumption of a liquid food, 

 which nourishes and fattens in spite of the diuresis ; but the condi- 

 tion is unwholesome, and cattle that have passed four or five months 

 in a swill stable have fatty livers and kidneys, and never again do 

 well on ordinary food. Diuresis may further occur from increase of 

 blood pressure in the kidneys (diseases of the heart or lungs which 

 hinder the onward passage of the blood, the eating of digitalis, Eng- 

 lish broom, the contraction of the blood vessels on the surface of the 

 body in cold weather, etc.) ; also from acrid or diuretic plants taken 

 with the food (dandelion, burdock, colchicum, digitalis, savin, resin- 

 ous shoots, etc.) ; from excess of sugar in the food (beets, turnips, ripe 

 sorghum) ; also from the use of frozen food (frosted turnip tops and 

 other vegetables) , and from the growths of certain molds in fodder 

 (musty hay, mow-burnt hay, moldy oats, moldy bread, etc.). Fi- 

 nally, alkaline waters and alkaline incrustations on the soil may be 

 active causes. In some of these cases the result is beneficial rather 

 than injurious, as when cattle affected with gravel in the kidneys are 

 entirely freed from this condition by a run at grass, or by an exclu- 

 sive diet of roots or swill. In other cases, however, the health and 

 condition suffer, and even inflammation of the kidneys may occur. 



Treatment. The treatment is mainly in the change of diet to 

 a more solid aliment destitute of the special offensive ingredient. 

 Boiled flaxseed is often the best diet or addition to the wholesome dry 

 food, and, by the way of medicine, doses of 2 drams each of sulphate 

 of iron and iodide of potassium may be given twice daily. In obstin- 

 ate cases, 2 drams ergot of rye or of catechu may be added. 

 BLOODY URINE (RED WATER, MOOR-ILL, WOOD-ILL, HEMATURIA, 



HEMOGLOBINURIA) . 



This is a common affection among cattle in certain localities, 

 above all on damp, undrained lands, and under a backward agricul- 

 ture. It is simply bloody urine or hematuria when the blood is found 

 in clots, or -when under the microscope the blood globules can be de- 

 tected as distinctly rounded, flattened disks. It is smoky urine 

 hemaglobinuria when no such distinct clots nor blood disks can be 

 found, but merely a general browning, reddening, or blackening of 

 the urine by the presence of dissolved blood coloring matter. The 

 bloody urine is the more direct result of structural disease of the kid- 

 neys or urinary passages (inflammation, stone, gravel, tumors hyda- 

 tids, kidney worms, sprains of the loins), while the stained urine 

 (hemaglobinuria) is usually the result of some general or more dis- 

 tant disorder in which the globules are destroyed in the circulating 

 blood and the coloring matter dissolved in and diffused through the 

 whole mass of the blood and of the urine secreted from it. As in the 

 two forms blood and the elements of blood escape into the urine, al- 

 bumen is always present, so that there is albuminuria with blood-col- 



