DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS. 117 



the contraction of the blood vessels on the surface of the body in cold 

 weather, etc.); also from acrid or diuretic plants taken, with the food 

 (dandelion, burdock, colchicum, digitalis, savin, resinous shoots, 

 etc. ) ; from excess of sugar in the food (beets, turnips, ripe sorghum) ; 

 also from the use of frozen food (frosted turnip tops and other vege- 

 tables), and from the growths of certain molds in fodder (musty hay, 

 mow-burnt hay, moldy oats, moldy bread, etc.). Finally, alkaline 

 waters and alkaline incrustations on the soil may be active causes. 

 In some of these cases the result is beneficial rather than injurious, 

 as when cattle affected with gravel in the kidneys are entirely freed 

 from this condition by a run at grass, or by an exclusive diet of roots 

 or swill. In other cases, however, the health and condition suffer, 

 and even inflammation of the kidneys may occur. 



Treatment. — The treatment is mainly in the change of diet to a more 

 solid aliment destitute of the special offensive ingredient. Boiled flax- 

 seed is often the best diet or addition to the wholesome dry food, and, 

 by way of medicine, doses of 2 drams each of sulphate of iron and 

 iodide of potassium may be given twice daily. In obstinate cases, 2 

 drams ergot of rye oi of catechu may be added. 



BLOODY URINE (RED WATER, MOOR-ILL, WOOD-ILL, HEMATURIA, 



HEMAGLOBINTTRIA) . 



This is a common affection among cattle in certain localities, above 

 all on damp, undrained lands, and under a backward agriculture. It 

 is simply bloody urine or hematuria when the blood is found in clots, 

 or when under the microscope the blood globules can be detected as 

 distinctly rounded, flattened disks. It is smoky urine — hemaglobinu- 

 ria — when no such distinct clots nor blood disks can be found, but 

 merely a general browning, reddening, or blackening of the urine by 

 the presence of dissolved blood coloring matter. The bloody urine is 

 the more direct result of structural disease of the kidneys or urinary 

 passages (inflammation, stone, gravel, tumors, hydatids, kidney worms, 

 sprains of the loins), while the stained urine (hemaglobinuria) is usu- 

 ally the result of some general or more distant disorder in which the 

 globules are destroyed in the circulating blood and the coloring mat- 

 ter dissolved in and diffused through the whole mass of the blood and 

 of the urine secreted from it. As in the two forms, blood and the ele- 

 ments of blood escape into the urine, albumen is always present, so 

 that there is albuminuria with blood-coloring matter superadded. If 

 due to stone or gravel, gritty particles are usually passed, and may 

 be detected in the bottom of a dish in which the liquid is caught. If 

 due to fracture or severe sprain of the loins, it is likely to be associ- 

 ated not only with some loss of control over the hind limbs and with 

 staggering behind, but also with a more or less perfect paralysis of 

 the tail. The blood-stained urine without red globules results from 

 specific diseases— Texas fever (PI. XLVII, fig. 3), anthrax, spirillosis, 



