132 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



passed out through the kidneys it must be in a more concentrated solu- 

 tion, and the more concentrated the urine the greater the danger tliat 

 the solids Avill be deposited as small crystals or calculi. 



Again, the concentrated condition of the urine which predisjioses 

 to such deposits is favored by the quantity of lime salts that may be 

 present in the water drunk by the animal. Water that contains 20 

 or 30 grains of carbonate or sulphate of lime to the gallon must con- 

 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 New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 

 and ISIichigan ; 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, since other poisons which are operative in the same districts 

 in causing goiter 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 Avhich 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 fonii of 

 the Duchess strain of Shorthorns. Lithotomy was performed and 

 a number of stones removed from the bladder and uretha, 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 impaction. 

 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, precipitated 

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

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

 stricted at interv^als, as if beaded. 



^Ylien 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 



