294 The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser. 



loins are tender, as ascertained by pinching on the spinofi 

 or the transverse processes of the backbone, there is less 

 difficulty experienced in backing than when there is sprain 

 or fracture of the back or loins, and the animal is more 

 likely to lie down though it costs an extra effort to rise, 

 ihere is straining to discharge urine, which is passed in 

 excess, in deficiency, in jets, in dribblets only, or not at aU. 

 'n the larger animals the bladder and its excretory duct 

 ^urethra) are easily and satisfactorily examined by the 

 hand introduced through the rectum or vagina and any 

 tenderness, flaccidity, swelling, over-distension or foreign 

 agent (stone) is easily made out. In the smaller breeds 

 of horses and cattle even, the kidneys may be reached in 

 this way and any heat, swelling, tenderness, etc., perceived. 

 Then brain disease, dropsies and skin eruptions are com- 

 mon results of urinary disorder. 



Examination of tJie Urine. But a certain clas^ of urin- 

 ary diseases are only to be made out by examination of 

 the urine. Beside the modifications of quantity and flow 

 already referred to, this may be altered : 1st, in color, as 

 white from saline deposits, brown or red from blood clots 

 and coloring matter, or from imperfectly oxidized albu- 

 minoids, yellow or orange from bile or blood pigment, pale 

 or variously tinted from vegetable colors taken with the 

 food : 2d, in density as measured by a hygrometer (urin- 

 ometer), the natuial urine being in the horse and ox 1030 

 to 1060, pig and goat 1010 to 1012, dog 1020 and cat 1058 : 

 Sd, in chemical reaction, acidity or alkalinity, as ascertained 

 by blue litmus or red test-papers (healthy herbivorous 

 nrine is alkaline, turning the red papers blue unless after 

 prolonged abstinence or a flesh diet ; carnivorous and om- 

 nivorous urine is acid excepting when confined to a vege- 

 table diet) : Ath, in organic ingredients, as when it contains 

 alb omen (coagulable by boiling or by strong nitric acid or 

 in the horse giving the liquid a ropy consistency), sugar, 

 blood, bile, cyhndroid microscopic casts of the uriniterous 

 tubes or the eggs or bodies of worms : 5th, in its salts. 



