522 DISEASES OF THE BLADDER. 



We cannot admit that poor forage and feeding alone are sufficient 

 to produce haematuria, for one frequently sees poorly nourished animals 

 pass through all the stages of wasting and most profound cachexia with- 

 out ever showing signs of this particular ailment. Besides, heematuria 

 may attack animals in good condition. 



Detroye's early opinion as to the infectious or microbic nature of 

 the disease seems scarcely more acceptable, for it now appears certain 

 that the organism originally described is incapable of producing the 

 disease. 



Galtier's theory is still less admissible. According to the Lyons 

 professor, haematuria occurs only in animals suffering from distomatosis. 

 The liver, he says, being affected by the growth of liver flukes, no longer 

 performs its proper work of destroying toxins, and if under these con- 

 ditions the animals eat improper food containing ranunculaceae, sedges, 

 rushes, etc., the toxic principles of these plants are absorbed. Then, 

 he adds, these principles being no longer destroyed, are eliminated by 

 the kidneys, their stay in the bladder causes irritation, and haemorrhagic 

 cystitis is set up, this being afterwards maintained by microbic agents 

 in the bladder. 



This very specious theory, all the points in which may readily be 

 refuted, in our opinion falls to the ground before the simple fact that 

 haematuria occurs in animals which present no trace of distomatosis 

 on post-mortem examination, and that, furthermore, it is not seen in 

 the lower regions of the departments of the Nord, the Pas-de- Calais 

 and the Somme, where ranunculaceae and other irritant plants are 

 common and distomatosis rages. 



Moussu states that he has proved that haematuria is very rare in 

 young animals and is exceptional before the age of two and a half 

 years or three years ; that it attacks oxen as often as cows ; that it 

 is particularly common in low regions ; and that it is scarcely ever 

 seen above a height of 800 yards. Careful investigation, moreover, 

 shows that the passage of blood occurs just as frequently in winter, 

 when the animals are housed, as in spring, when at pasture. 



Lesions. The lesions of haematuria are to be found in the bladder, 

 though in exceptional cases they may also affect the ureters and kid- 

 neys. They have been described by Pichon and Sinoir, but as these 

 observers regarded the condition as a disease of the blood due to poor 

 feeding, etc., they did not attach much importance to them. Detroye 

 has described the different appearances very well, though Moussu 

 states that he has never met with the " blisters " which he mentions. 



The first period is accompanied simply by abnormal vascularity of 

 the bladder, which appears in the form of true varicosities of the 

 sub-mucous vessels and intra-mucous capillaries. But if this lesion 



