Hematuria. 207 



liquids in serous cavities. Treatment : avoid the injurious soils, drain, cul- 

 tivate, feed products of sucli soils with other food, oleaginous or saline laxa- 

 tives, antiferments, tonics, astringents, flax seed, farinas. 



The passage of blood or blood elements in the urine. 



Causes. A symptom of a variety of diseases, producing lesions 

 of the secreting structures of the kidneys ; acute congestion, 

 tumors, calculi, parasitism. Also as a manifestation of diseases 

 of distant organs — hsemoglobinuria, southern cattle fever, an- 

 thrax, poisoning by irritant diuretics, wounds of the bladder, 

 pelvic fracture with injury to bladder or urethra, cystitis with 

 varicose cystic veins, etc. 



Among the irritant plants charged with producing the affection 

 are the young shoots of oak, ash, privet, hornbean, alder, hazel, 

 •dogberry, pine, fir, and coniferse, generally. Also ranunculus, 

 hellebore, colchicum, mercuriales annua, asclepias vincetoxi- 

 cum, broom, etc. The disease is common in spring in cattle 

 turned out too early to get good pasturage and which, it is 

 alleged, take to eating the sivelling buds and young shoots of 

 irritant plants. 



The disease has occurred mostly in woods and wild lands and 

 has accordingly been vulgarly named the wood evil, (maladie de 

 bois, holzkrankheit), and moor ill. 



In England, as occurring in the puerperal cow, Cuming, of 

 Ellon, attributes it to a too exclusive diet of turnips. His analy- 

 sis showed that turnips contained 10% sugar and i to ij^% 

 vegetable albumen. The sugar is held to stimulate unduly the 

 milk secretion, but fails to supply the nitrogenous materials need- 

 ful to form it and the cow is speedily rendered anaemic, with 

 solution of the blood globules or of the hsematin and its excre- 

 tion by the urine. No attempt was made to produce hsematuria 

 by an exclusive or excessive diet of sugar, and cows fed on 

 turnips grown on well drained lands never suffered from the 

 ■disease. 



Williams says that urine in such cases had a strong odor of 

 rotten turnips. This argues not an anaemia determined by sugar, 

 b)Ut rather an intestinal fermentation, perhaps superipduced by 

 ferments introduced along with the turnips. Add to this the 

 notorious fact that the offending turnips are usually such as are 

 ^rown on wild, damp, undraiued, swampy, or mucky lands, and 



