DISEASES OP THE URINARY ORGANS. . 121 



deranged liver or brain. As a mere attendant on another disease it 

 will demand no special notice here. 



INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS (NEPHRITIS). 



This has been divided according as it affects the different parts of 

 the kidneys, as: (1) Its fibrous covering (perinephritis); (2) the 

 secreting tissue of its outer portion (parenchymatous) ; (3) the con- 

 nective tissue (interstitial); (4) the lining membrane of its ducts 

 (catarrhal); and (5) its pelvis or sac receiving the urine (pyelitis). 

 It has also been distinguished according to the changes that take 

 place in the kidney, especially as seen after death, according to the 

 amount of albumen present in the urine, and according as the affec- 

 tion is acute or chronic. For the purposes of this work it will be con- 

 venient to consider these as one inflammatory disease, making a 

 distinction merely between those that are acute and those that are 

 chronic or of long standing. 



The causes are in the main like those causing bloody urine, such as 

 irritant and diuretic plants, Spanish flies applied as a blister or other- 

 wise, exposure to cold and wet, the presence of stone or gravel in the 

 kidneys, injuries to the back or loins, as by riding each other, the 

 drinking of alkaline or selenitious water, the use of putrid, stagnant 

 water, or of that containing bacteria and their products, the consump- 

 tion of musty fodder, etc. (See "Hematuria," p. 117.) 



The length of the loins in cattle predisposes these to mechanical 

 injury, and in the lean and especially in the thin working ox the kid- 

 ney is very liable to suffer. In the absence of an abundance of loose 

 connective tissue and of fat, the kidneys lie in close contact with the 

 muscles of the loins, and any injury to these may tend to put the kid- 

 ney and its vessels on the stretch, or to cause its inflammation by direct 

 extension of the disease from the injured muscle to the adjacent kidney. 

 Thus, under unusually heavy draft, under slips and falls on slippery 

 ground, under sudden unexpected drooping or twisting of the loins 

 from missteps or from the feet sinking into holes, under the loading 

 and jarring of the loins when animals ride each other in cases of 

 "heat," the kidneys are subject to injury and inflammation. A hard 

 run, as when chased by a dog, may be the occasion of such an attack. 

 A fodder rich in nitrogenous or flesh-forming elements (beans, peas, 

 vetches ( Vicia sativa), and other leguminous plants) has been charged 

 with irritating the kidneys through the excess of urea, hippuric acid, 

 and allied products eliminated through these organs and the tendency 

 to the formation of gravel. It seems, however, that these foods are 

 most dangerous when partially ripened and yet not fully matured, a 

 stage of growth at which they are apt to contain ingredients irritating 

 to the stomach and poisonous to the brain, as seen in their inducing 

 so-called "stomach staggers." Even in the poisoning by the seeds of 

 ripened but only partially cured rye grass (Lolium perenne), and 



