DISEASES OF THE URINAEY ORGANS. 



155 



are notoriously prevalent on many limestone soils, as on the limestone 

 formations of central and western Kew York, Peuusylania, Ohio, and 

 Michigan; on the calcareons formations of Norfolk, Suffolk, Derby- 

 shire, Shropshire, and Gloucestershire, in England; in Laudes in 

 France, and around Munich in Bavaria. It does not follow that the 

 abundance of lime in the water and fodder is the main cause of the 

 calculi, since other poisons which are operative in the same districts in 

 causing goitre in both man and animal probably contribute to the 

 trouble, yet the excess of earthy salts in the drinking water can hardly 

 fail to add to the saturation of both blood and urine, and thereby to 

 favor the precipitation of the urinary solids from their state of solution. 



The known results of feeding cattle a generous or forcing ration in 

 which phosphate of lime is present to excess adds additional force to 

 the view just advanced. In the writer's experience, the Second Duke 

 of Oneida, a magnificent product of his world-famed family, died as the 

 result of a too liberal allowance of wheat bran, fed with the view of 

 still further improving the bone and general form of the Duchess strain 

 of Shorthorns. Lithotomy was performed and a number of stones re- 

 moved from the bladder and urethra, but the patient succumbed to aH 

 inflammation of the bowels, induced by the violent purgatives given, 

 before the writer arrived, under the mistaken idea that the straining 

 had been caused by intestinal impaction. In this case not only the 

 Second Duke of Oueida, but the other males of the herd as well, had 

 the tufts of hairs at the outlet of the sheath encased in hard, cylin- 

 droid sheaths of urinary salts, precipitated from the liquid as it ran 

 over them. The tufts were in reality resolved into a series of hard, 

 roller-like bodies, more or less constricted at intervals, as if braided. 



When it is stated that the ash of the whole grain of wheat is but 3 

 per cent, while the ash of wheat bran is 7.3 per cent, and that in the 

 case of the former 4G.3S per cent of the ash is phosphoric acid, and in 

 that of the latter 50 per cent, it can easily be understood how a too 

 liberal use of wheat bran should prove dangerous if fed dry. The fol- 

 lowing table shows the relative proportion of ash and phosphoric acid 

 in wheat bran and in some common farm seeds: 



