INJURIES TO THE URETHRA. 
875 
discovered from the rectum. It has already been remarked that where 
the bladder is much distended, casting must be effected cautiously. 
IV.—INJURIES, INFLAMMATION AND STRICTURES OF 
THE URETHRA. 
Save by operation, the urethra is seldom wounded. Adam describes 
a case of injury in the horse by an iron hook. Healing was difficult. 
Fuchs saw a severe case in a horse that had fallen in front of a tramway 
car. The urethra was almost completely torn out of the penis by a 
hook: a small portion remained hanging to the glans ; the rest was only 
connected with the bladder. About 16 inches was cut away and the 
wound disinfected. Some hours later bleeding occurred from the 
corpus cavernosum, but was checked by ligature, and though severe 
swelling occurred it disappeared in eight days. Recovery was sufficiently 
advanced in four weeks for the horse to return to work. The urethra 
opened somewhat below the perineum. 
Inflammation of the urethra may be caused by foreign bodies entering 
it accidentally, or being introduced by way of treatment. 
Should foreign bodies like awns of wheat obtain access, the minute 
spines they possess cause them gradually to pass upwards and produce 
injuries of the mucous membrane and inflammation. Specific conditions 
like gonorrhoea of man have not yet been recognised in animals, if we 
except dogs, which occasionally suffer from chronic purulent urethral 
catarrh. Many cases are really only purulent preputial catarrh (see 
“ Inflammation of the Prepuce in Carnivora ”). 
Stricture of the urethra is commonest after operations like urethrotomy 
and amputation of the penis, but it may also result from accidental injury. 
Perforating wounds of the urethra are recognised by urine escaping 
through them during micturition. They are often associated with 
symptoms of infiltration of urine, such as inflammation, severe swelling, 
and a tendency to gangrene. Such a complication is most to be feared 
when the wound in the mucous membrane is greater than that in the 
skin, or when the latter is not divided at all, as in bruises. 
Swelling of the mucous membrane of the urethra consequent on 
inflammation produces symptoms like those of urethral calculus. 
In oxen the urethra is said to be sometimes ruptured by the passage 
of urethral calculi. 
Foreign bodies in the urethra produce a like train of symptoms. 
Bluhm describes the case of a horse which suffered from colic and 
retention of urine, and allowed the penis to protrude from the sheath. 
Careful examination discovered in the urethra an oat-head 4 inches in 
length with awns. 
