130 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



tribute a large addition of solids to the blood and urine as compared 

 with soft waters from which lime is absent. In this connection it is 

 a remarkable fact that stone and gravel in the domesticated herbivora 

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

 formations of central and western Xew York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 

 and Michigan ; on the calcareous formations of Norfolk, Suffolk, Der- 

 byshire, Shropshire, and Gloucestershire, in England; in Landes 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, as other poisons which are operative in the same districts 

 in causing goiter in both man and animal probably contribute to the 

 trouble, jet the excess of earthy salts in the drinking water can 

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

 thereb}'^ to favor the preciptation 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 removed from the bladder and urethra, but the 

 patient succumbed to an inflammation of the bowels, induced by the 

 violent purgatives given before the writer arrived, under the mis- 

 taken idea that the straining had been caused by intestinal impac- 

 tion. In this case not only the Second Duke of Oneida, but the other 

 males of the herd as well, had the tufts of hairs at the outlet of the 

 sheath encased in hard, cylindroid sheaths of urinary salts, pre- 

 cipitated from the liquid as it ran over them. The tufts were in 

 reality resolved into a series of hard, rollerlike bodies, more or less 

 constricted at intervals, as if beaded. 



"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 46.38 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 

 following table shows the relative proportion of ash and phosphoric 

 acid in Avheat bran and in some common farm seeds: 



