AZOTURI A.. 
259 
pulse is sent to that point and then reflected down the spinal cord 
to where the phrenic nerve is given off, and that nerve being the 
nerve supply to the diaphragm, it stimulates that nerve and 
through it the diaphragm, thus causing it to act faster and thereby 
producing accelerated breathing. 
Another peculiarity of azoturia is that we always observe the 
largest muscles involved—those muscles that have the action for 
propelling the body, such as the psoas and gluteal and vastus, as 
well as those of the fore extremities. 
We know that a large muscle will give off more waste than a 
smaller one, and it will take more nutritive material to replace 
the waste of that muscle; and this fact tends to lead me to be¬ 
lieve that the elements that combine to produce the disease are 
produced in the muscle itself, being the product”that is given off 
from them and the nutritive material that is carried there by the 
arterial system to rebuild them. On that theory we can account 
for this disease attacking the largest muscles in different parts of 
the system and the principal muscles of locomotion, and the faster 
and more exercised these muscles, the faster will the compound 
be produced. Here, again, we can account for the phenomenon 
that the faster the horse is exerted the more serious will be the 
case. We also observe, in the treatment of azoturia, that if we 
can be successful in keeping the patient quiet and from strug¬ 
gling, we can soon bring the disease under our control and have 
our patient on the road to convalescence. And one more marked 
symptom we observe is the dark-colored urine, which I think is 
due to some chemical reaction from the transformation of the 
urea into an ammonia compound. 
My conclusion, therefore, is that azoturia is produced, not by 
the above theories which I have mentioned in this paper, but is 
due, as I have said, to an excess of carbonic dioxide, formed in 
the system from the waste products that are given off from the 
muscular system and the nutritive material that is taken into the 
circulation to replace the w^sfe which the muscular system under¬ 
goes while in action. 
