380 CATTLE. 



calculus and the urethra are less likely to roll under the knife, and 

 the wound will more readily heal. One or two sutures should be 

 passed through the edges of the wound, which will speedily adhere. 

 The operation is simple, but the danger of neglect is great ; and 

 many a beast has been lost by the bladder being distended, and 

 continuing so until violent inflammation of its mucous coat has taken 

 place, or it has been ruptured. 



Should not the calculus be in this anterior portion of the urethra, 

 that between the scrotum and the anus should be carefully examined ; 

 and if it be not found there, it is imprisoned somewhere in the inverted 

 >S^ curve. An incision must then be made anteriorly to the scrotum, 

 in the manner already described ; the penis drawn out ; the curve for 

 a while obliterated ; the situation of the obstruction discovered ; the 

 urethra laid open at that point, and the calculus extracted. 



Some veterinarians have remarked, that oxen are mos- subject to 

 the formation of these calculi during the autumn and winter ; and 

 that, as the spring advances, the new grass produces a more abun- 

 dant secretion of urine, and thus relaxes the urinaiy organs, and 

 enables the calculi more easily to pass ; while the fresh herbage gives 

 an alkaline and soapy character to the urine, which causes some of 

 the recently formed calculi to be dissolved in the bladder. 



Homoiopathic treatment. — After an operation, it is necessary to 

 dress the wound with arnica water, to give some doses of this medi- 

 cine internally to prevent traumatic fever, and to give one or two 

 doses of china, on account of the loss of blood. The homoeopathic 

 remedy to be employed is uva ursi, which prevents inflammation, 

 consequently contraction of the urethra, and assists in favoring the 

 expulsion of the foreign body, if it have not already passed into the 

 urethra, in which case all the medical means is in general useless. 

 Lycopodium has also been tried with success. 



RUPTURE OF THE BLADDER. 



This is the necessary consequence of over-distension of a vessel, the 

 coats of which are naturally weak; or it may be produced by a care- 

 less or brutal mode of casting the animal. It would not require any 

 great shock in order to rupture the bladder, after suppression of urine 

 had existed several days, and the coats of the bladder had begun to 

 be weakened by inflammation. 



The circumstances which would most unerringly indicate a rupture 

 of the bladder, would be the impossibility of detecting that vessel in 

 the pelvic cavity when the hand was introduced into the rectum ; or, 

 after the bladder had been felt, round and hard almost as a foot-ball, 

 and the animal had been expressing in every possible way the tor- 

 ture he endured, a perfect calm all at once succeeding. This would 

 probably be hailed by the inexperienced practitioner as a symptom 

 of recovery, but the skillfu. one would regard it as the forerunner of 



