642 INFLAMMATION OF THE URINARY BLADDER. 



bladder causes acute pain. The urine discharged is turbid, and 

 shows on microscopical examination much cystic epithelium, blood, 

 pus corpuscles, flakes of mucous membrane, and not infrequently 

 crystals of triple phosphate in the well-known coffin-lid shaped form. 

 In carnivora micturition is difficult and painful ; the urine contains 

 mucus, albumin, epithelial debris, white corpuscles and bacteria, 

 and gives an alkaline reaction. There is great depression with fever 

 and constipation, and the appetite is diminished or suppressed. 



Pus in any considerable quantity produces a yellow sediment, 

 whilst in fibrinous cystitis false membranes are discharged with 

 the urine. Infection of the bladder is usually associated with fever, 

 the intensity of which indicates the nature and significance of the 

 disease. Cystic calculi are often indicated by discharges of blood, 

 especially after work (see "Urinary Calculi in the Horse "). 



Chronic pericystitis seldom produces marked symptoms, but leads 

 to gradual thickening of the bladder wall ; and post-mortem shows 

 a condition greatly resembling those hypertrophic processes resulting 

 from long-standing obstruction to urination (dysuria), which are 

 associated with abnormal distension of the bladder itself. Funfstuck, 

 when making the post-mortem of a goat, found the bladder of enormous 

 size and containing 52 pints of fluid. 



The course of this disease varies ; for whilst purulent fibrinous 

 cystitis, either directly or in consequence of complication with 

 pyelonephritis, soon proves fatal, pericystitis and chronic inflam- 

 mation, caused by cystic calculi or sediments, may continue indefinitely 

 if the cause of the disease be not removed. Catarrhal cystitis usually 

 disappears in a few days. 



Prognosis, and indeed treatment, therefore, depend on the 

 indications furnished by a careful examination of the urine, which 

 must be considered in conjunction with the symptoms. It should 

 be remembered that many of these diseases have a great tendency 

 to recur. 



Treatment. Some benefit results from the administration of 

 medicines which, excreted with the urine, exert a curative effect 

 on the cystic mucous membrane, but direct treatment is always 

 more effectual. Boric acid, salol, saliyclic acid, biborate of soda, 

 chloride of potash, and other medicines have been used, and may 

 prove of service in simple catarrhal inflammation. 



But immediately putrefactive changes, especially alkaline fer- 

 mentation of the urine, appear, local treatment must be resorted 

 to. The urine should be drawn off, and the bladder irrigated, two 

 or three times a day, through a gum-elastic catheter or rubber tube 



