DISEASES OF CATTLE 149 



treatment is demanded it is primarily soothing and antispasmodic. 

 Fomentations with warm water over the loins should be persisted in 

 without intermission until relief has been secured. The soothing 

 effect on the kidney will often relieve inflammation and irritation, 

 should the stone be in that situation, while if in the ureter the warm 

 fomentations will at once soothe irritation, relax spasm of the 

 muscular coat of the canal, and favor an abundant secretion from 

 the kidney, which, pressing on the obstructing stone, may slowly 

 push it on into the bladder. Large doses of laudanum (2 ounces) 

 or of solid extract of belladonna (2 drams) will not only soothe 

 the pain but relax the spasm and favor the onward passage of the 

 calculus. The animal should tbe encouraged to drink large quan- 

 tities of cool water to favor the free secretion of a very watery urine, 

 which will not only serve to obviate irritation and continued de- 

 posit caused by a highly concentrated urine, but will press the stone 

 onward toward the bladder, and even in certain cases will tend to 

 disintegrate it by solution of some of its elements, and thus to 

 favor its crumbling and expulsion. This is a principle which must 

 never be lost sight of in the treatment of calculi. The immersion 

 of the stone in a liquid of a lower specific gravity than that in which 

 it has formed and grown tends to dissolve out the more soluble of 

 its component parts, and thus to destroy its density and cohesion 

 at all points, and thereby to favor its complete disintegration and 

 expulsion. This explains why cattle taken from a herd on our 

 magnesian limestone in spring, after the long dry feeding of win- 

 ter, usually furnish renal calculi, while cattle from the same herd 

 in the fall, after a summer's run on a succulent pasture, are almost 

 always free from concretions. The abundance of liquid taken in 

 the green food and expelled through the kidneys and the low dens- 

 ity or watery nature of the urine have so opened the texture and 

 destroyed the density of the smaller stones and gravel that they 

 have all been disintegrated and removed. This, too, is the main 

 reason why benefit is derived from a prolonged stay at mineral 

 springs by the human victims of gravel. If they had swallowed 

 the same number of quarts of pure water at home and distributed 

 it at suitable intervals over each day, they would have benefited 

 largely without a visit to the springs. 



It follows from what has (been just said that a succulent diet, 

 including a large amount of water (gruels, sloppy mashes, turnips, 

 beets, potatoes, apples, pumpkins, ensilage, succulent grasses), is 

 an important factor in the relief of the milder forms of stone and 

 gravel. 



Prevention. Prevention of calculus especially demands this 

 supply of water and watery rations on all soils and in all conditions 

 in which there is a predisposition to this disease. It must also be 

 sought by attempts to obviate all those conditions mentioned above 

 as causative of the malady. Sometimes good rain water can be fur- 

 nished in limestone districts, but putrid or bad smelling rain water 

 is to be avoided as probably more injurious than that from the lime- 

 stone. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to dissolve calculi 



