592 
CONSULTATIONS. 
right kidney, and the pulse 40 and full. The first impression on 
my mind, and which still remains, was that it was an affection of 
the kidney, but to what extent it existed, or what mischief it had 
done, I could not at once determine. I ordered half an ounce of 
the carbonate of potash, with two drachms of powdered gentian, to 
be given in a ball morning and night, and the clear liquor of a 
decoction of linseed to be given morning and night. 
This was continued a fortnight with no good effect ; I therefore 
determined to analyse her urine, and found in it a great redundancy 
of alkaline matter, rapidly decomposed by nitric acid. 
I wished now to have her more immediately under my care, and 
proposed that she should be sent to our establishment. She came, 
and I changed her medicine, and gave her two drachms of nitric 
acid, with three ounces of linseed meal, and a quart of cold water, 
every day. 
She was apparently easier during four days, when every bad 
symptom returned with increased violence. She threw herself 
suddenly down, rolling over and over, then lying on her back for 
awhile, and, after that, getting up apparently easy and feeding as 
placidly as ever. Her pulse varied from 70, and bounding to 36, 
and placid. 
I then — being urged so to do — gave her powerful diuretics, as 
half an ounce of nitre twice in the day, for two days, and then two 
ounces of turpentine with mucilage, daily, for the next two days: 
but these medicaments, as I had prognosticated, rendered her suffer- 
ings more acute; I therefore subtracted ten pounds of blood, and 
gave her six drachms of Barbadoes aloes; after this, I gave her 
half-drachm doses of opium in solution. This acted little or not 
at all as a palliative; or, if it did, it was to make her rest as much 
as she could, by sitting on her haunches like a dog. 
(Another veterinary surgeon was now summoned in consulta- 
tion; but, after the deepest consideration, we were not disposed to. 
make any alteration in the treatment.) 
I several times removed her water with a catheter, and subjected 
it to the most careful examination; and I minutely examined, so 
far as I could, per rectum, the corrugations of the bladder, but I 
could not detect the slightest calculus, nor any thing to account for 
the singular symptoms which she exhibits. There are certainly 
some appearances of oestrum; but this will not satisfactorily ac- 
count for the state of the vagina, or the irritability of the bladder. 
She does not waste so much as might be expected, and her age i& 
about ten. 
The recollection of many an instance of kindness emboldens, & c. 
W.R, 
