DISEASES OF THE UKINAEY ORGANS. 123 



Treatment. — Treatment is usually directed to the disease on which 

 it is dependent. In the absence of anj^ other recognizable disease, 

 mucilaginous drinks of boiled flaxseed, slippery elm, or gum ma}-- be 

 given, tannic acid, one-half dram twice daily, and fomentations or 

 even mustard poultices over the loins. AVlien the disease is chronic 

 and there is no attendant fever (elevation, of temperature), tonics 

 (hydrochloric acid, 6 drops in a pint of water; phosphate of iron, 2 

 drams, or sulphate of quinin, 2 drams, repeated twice daily) may 

 be used. In all cases the patient should be kept carefully from cold 

 and wet, a warm, dry shed, or in warm weather a dry, sunny yard 

 or pasture being especially desirable. 



SUGAR IN URINE (DIABETES MELLITUS). 



This is a frequent condition of the urine in parturition fever, but 

 as a specific disease, associated with deranged liver or brain, it is 

 practically unknown in cattle. As a mere attendant on another dis- 

 ease it demands no special notice here. 



INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS (NEPHRITIS). 



This has been divided according as it affects the different parts of 

 the kidneys, as: (1) Its fibrous covering (perinephritis) ; (2) the 

 secreting tissue of its outer portion (parench3anatous) ; (3) the con- 

 nective tissue (interstitial) ; (4) the lining membrane of its ducts 

 (catarrhal) ; and (5) its pelvis or sac receiving the urine (pyelitis). 

 It has also been distinguished according to the changes that take 

 place in the kidney, especially as seen after death, according to the 

 quantity of albumin in the urine, and according as the affection is 

 acute or chronic. For the purpose of this work it will be convenient 

 to consider these as one inflammatory disease, making a distinction 

 merely between the acute and the chronic or of long standing. 



The causes are in the main like those causing bloody urine, such 

 as irritant and diuretic plants, Spanish flies applied as^a blister or 

 otherwise, exposure to cold and wet, the presence of stone or gravel 

 in the kidneys, injuries to the back or loins, as by riding one another, 

 the drinking of alkaline or selenitic water, the use of putrid, stag- 

 nant water, of that containing bacteria and their products, the con- 

 sumption of musty fodder, etc. (See " Hematuria," p. 119.) 



The length of the loins in cattle predisposes these parts to mechani- 

 cal injury, and in the lean and especially in the thin, working ox the 

 kidney is very liable to suffer. In the absence of an abundance 

 of loose, connective tissue and of fat, the kidneys lie in close contact 

 with the muscles of the loins, and any injury to them may tend to 

 stretch the kidney and its vessels, or to cause its inflammation by 

 direct extension of the disease from the injured muscle to the adja- 

 cent kidney. Thus, under unusually heavy draft, under slips or 



