228 DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



might have recovered ; for it has often surprised me to observe 

 how small has been the measure of that excrement itious fluid 

 which the frame has sometimes thrown off, and yet preserved 

 itself harmless. But the cessation of the excretion altogethei is 

 universally a fatal symptom in my experience, being followed by 

 oppression on the brain.' The same eminent physician states that 

 in three of his five cases there was observed a remarkably strong 

 urinous smell in the perspiration for twenty-four hours before 

 death. This I believe is of common occurrence in such cases. 

 Other patients have vomited, or passed by the bowels, watery 

 matters possessing some of the sensible qualities of urine ; and a 

 urinous fluid is said to have been found in the ventricles of the 

 brain in some of the fatal cases. 



I have spoken of suppression of urine as a malady, though it 

 probably is never any thing more than a symptom; yet it is one 

 of those symptoms which, from our uncertainty respecting their 

 origin and determining cause, we are obliged to treat and to study 

 as if they were substantive diseases. In the only well-marked 

 instance that I have seen of suppression of urine coming on in an 

 apparently healthy person, some blood had appeared in the urine 

 for a day or two before the secretion was totally suspended, and 

 the kidneys were found gorged with blood. Extreme congestion 

 or inflammation of the substance of the gland is probably at the 

 bottom of many of these cases. The same train of symptoms 

 supervenes not unfrequently upon organic renal disease. They 

 happen, too, sometimes, when the ureters become impervious from 

 disease, or from impacted gravel. In this condition urine con- 

 tinues to be secreted, for a time at least, and distends the ureter 

 behind the seat of the obstruction. The apoplectic state which 

 ensues may arise from a reabsorption of the secreted fluid ; or, in 

 consequence of the obstacle, the secretion itself, after going to a 

 certain point, may stop, and then the case becomes a case of sup- 

 pression." 



Treatment. — Persons desirous of administering medicine for the 

 treatment of this affection, are advised to give half an ounce of 

 powdered chlorate of potass, dissolved in the drink, every night, 

 and half an ounce of fluid extract of buchu every morning. 



