228 DADD’S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 
might have recovered ; for it has often surprised me to observa 
how small has been the measure of that excrementitious fluid 
which the frame has sometimes thrown off, and yet preserved 
itself harmless. But the cessation of the excretion altogether is 
universally a fatal symptom in my experience, being followed by 
oppression on the brain.’ The same eminent physician states that 
in three of his five cases there was observed a remarkably strong 
urinous smell in the perspiration for twenty-four hours before 
death. This I believe is of common occurrence in such cases. 
Other patients have vomited, or passed by the bowels, watery 
matters possessing some of the sensible qualities of urine; and a 
urinous fluid is said to have been found in the ventricles of the 
brain in some of the fatal cases. 
I have spoken of suppression of urine as a malady, though it 
probably is never any thing more than a symptom; yet it is one 
of those symptoms which, from our uncertainty respecting their 
origin and determining cause, we are obliged to treat and to study 
as if they were substantive diseases. In the only well-marked 
instance that I have seen of suppression of urine coming on in an 
apparently healthy person, some blood had appeared in the urine 
for a day or two before the secretion was totally suspended, and 
the kidneys were found gorged with blood. Extreme congestioa 
or inflammation of the substance of the gland is probably at the 
bottom of many of these cases. The same train of symptoms 
supervenes not unfrequently upon organic renal disease. They 
happen, too, sometimes when the ureters become impervious from 
disease, or from impacted gravel. In this condition urine con- 
tinues to be secreted, for a time at least, and distends the ureter 
behind the seat of the obstruction. The apoplectic state which 
ensues may arise from a reabsorption of the secreted fluid; or, in 
consequence of the obstacle, the secretion itself, after going to a 
certain point, may stop, and then the case becomes a case of sup- 
pression.” 
Treatment.—Persons desirous of administering medicine for the 
treatment of this affection, are advised to give half an ounce of 
powdered chlorate of potass, dissolved in the drink, every night, 
end half an ounce of fluid extract of buchu every morning. 
