ISO 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
state of rest, we can understand by the suggested theory why 
the great muscles of the loins and hips which supply the prin¬ 
cipal power in locomotion should usually present the first 
and most pronounced evidence of disease; the sudden drain 
upon the already deficient water supply in the muscular tis¬ 
sues and in the greatly augmented amount of blood supplied 
to these muscles quickly leading to blood stasis, extravasa¬ 
tions, muscular cramps, succeeded by paralysis, destruction 
of the red globules, the excretion of their waste products in 
the urine and the peculiar tense swellings of the muscles 
involved. * 
Such a view of azoturia affords us a safe guide to pre¬ 
vention, viz: regular daily exercise or well marked diminu¬ 
tion in the amount of food during rest. It also offers us—what 
clinical observation has proven the most successful means of 
treatment in the earlier stages before the animal has gone 
down—prompt quietude and rest for two or three hours con¬ 
stitutes well nigh a specific, and the same line of treatment, 
rest, quietude, without medication or handling calculated to 
irritate or annoy the animal or to interfere with the normal 
action of any organ or organs, until the blood by drawing on 
other tissues, has regained its normal humidity. 
This doctrine condemns the use of slings as tending to 
increase muscular effort and contraindicates the employment 
of drastric purgatives, which cause an additional serious 
drain upon the water of the blood and tissues. One writer, 
advising slings and cathartics, remarks that with such treat¬ 
ment the animal, which remains standing, has a fair chance 
for recovery, while the condition of the recumbent case is 
very grave. While against this doleful prognosis, cases treated 
upon the line indicated by our theory assume a more cheer¬ 
ful prophecy, the recumbent cases largely—the standing cases 
practically all—making very prompt recoveries, and this 
largely in proportion to our ability to enforce in the earlier 
stages the injunction of rest and comfort. 
To this end, sinapisms, blisters, uncomfortably hot or irri¬ 
tating applications of any kind to the loins, hips or other parts of 
the body in the early stages, cannot be too highly condemned, 
