DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS. 123 



In some severe cases colicky pains are as violent as in the worst 

 forms of indigestion and spasms of the bowels. The animal fre- 

 quently shifts from one hind foot to the other, stamps, kicks at the 

 belly, looks anxiously at its flank at frequent intervals, moans plain- ' 

 tively, lies down and quickly gets up again, grinds its teeth, twists 

 its tail, and keeps the back habitually arched and rigid and the hind 

 feet advanced under the belly. The bowels may be costive and the 

 feces glistening with a coat of mucus, or, they may be loose and irri- 

 table, and the paunch or even the bowels may become distended with 

 gas (bloating) as the result of indigestion and fermentation. In some 

 animals, male and female alike, the rigid arched condition of the back 

 will give way to such undulating movements as are sometimes seen 

 in the act of coition. 



The disease does not always appear in its full severity; but for a 

 day, or even two, there may be merely loss of appetite, impaired rumi- 

 nation, a disposition to remain lying down; yet when the patient is 

 raised, it manifests suffering by anxiously looking at the flanks, shift- 

 ing or stamping of the hind feet, shaking of the tail, and attempts to 

 urinate, which are either fruitless or lead to the discharge of a small 

 quantity of high-colored or perhaps bloody urine. 



In some recent slight cases, and in many chronic ones, these symp- 

 toms may be absent or unobserved, and an examination of the urine 

 will be necessary to reach a safe conclusion. The urine may contain 

 blood, or it may be cloudy from contained albumen, which coagulates 

 on heating with nitric acid (see Albuminuria) ; it may be slightly 

 glairy from pus, or gritty particles may be detected in it. In seeking 

 for casts of the uriniferous tubes, a drop may be taken with a fine 

 tube from the bottom of the liquid after standing and examined under 

 a power magnifying 50 diameters. If the fine cylindroid filaments 

 are seen they may then be examined with a power of 200 or 250 diam- 

 eters. (PI. XI, fig. 5. ) The appearance of the casts gives some clue to 

 the condition of the kidneys. If made up of large rounded or slightly 

 columnar cells, with a single nucleus in each cell (epithelial), they 

 imply comparatively slight and recent disease of the kidney tubes, 

 the detachment of the epithelium being like what is seen in any 

 inflamed mucous surface. If made up largely of the small disk- 

 shaped and nonnucleated red-blood globules, they imply escape of 

 blood, and usually a recent injury or congestion of the kidney — it may 

 be from sprains, blows, or the ingestion of acrid or diuretic poisons. 

 If the casts are made of a clear, waxy, homogeneous substance (hya- 

 line), without any admixture of opaque particles, they imply an 

 inflammation of longer standing, in which the inflamed kidney tubules 

 have been already stripped of their cellular (epithelial) lining." If the 

 casts are rendered opaque by the presence of minute spherical granu- 

 lar cells, like white-blood globules, it betokens active suppuration of 

 the kidney tubes. In other cases the casts are rendered opaque by 



