148 VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



AZOTURIA. 



Synonyms. — Enzootic hsematuria; Nitrogenous urine; Albuminuria. 



Beflnition. — A blood disease characterized by an abnormal amount 

 of nitrogenous material in the system. It powerfully affects the nervous 

 system, causing convulsions and, in fatal cases, death in a few hours. 



Symptoms. — Kobertson thus describes the symptoms: ^' They are in- 

 variably of an extremely sudden and urgent character; there is no warn- 

 ing or premonitory indications of either disturbed digestion or innerva- 

 tion, rather the opposite, the animal immediately preceding the attack 

 being in the very acme of health and vigor. 



Although horses laid aside from work or active exercise and regularly 

 fed may have an attack while stationary in the house, the greater num- 

 ber of seizures are in animals where this rest and steady good feeding 

 has been succeeded by work or exercise; that is, the period of a probable 

 seizure is on being taken from the stable for exercise or work following 

 some days of idleness. On removal from the stable, the animal may pro- 

 ceed a very short distance — I have seen them travel only a few hundred 

 yards, at other times a few miles — when seized with an unaccountable 

 lameness or difiBculty in moving the limb or limbs, generally the hind 

 ones, they are with difficulty got into their own or some convenient sta- 

 ble; or they may suddenly reel, lose control over their posterior extremi- 

 ties, and come violently to the ground. Many of these very sudden 

 attacks, unless we bear in recollection the possible occurrence of this dis- 

 ease and know the history of the case, are apt to be at first mistaken for 

 some lesion of the spine or muscles of the back or loins. Other cases, 

 not so suddenly developing the musculo-nervous symptoms, may, in the 

 earliest stages of illness, give indications of colic; they are restless, paw- 

 ing with the fore-feet, inclined to perspire, and exhibit a disposition to 

 lie down. It is when attempting to do this that we generally observe the 

 feebleness and want of motor-power in the hind limbs. Very shortly 

 the more specially characteristic symptoms show themselves, if they 

 have not been observed from the outset. These are tremors and spas- 

 modic twitcliings of the great muscles of the loins and gluteal region, ulti- 

 mately settling into tonic contraction or more or less perfect loss of 

 power; together with discharge of brown or coffee-colored urine in nor- 

 mal or extra amount. 



