B. The rectum, with the natural length of mesentery, when not depressed.
C. The rectum raised, showing that the mesentery is very pliable.
By inserting the hand and moving it gradually upward, an approach can be made to the immediate vicinity of the inflammation. Sensitiveness will be exhibited as the seat of disease is touched. Heat will also be felt. A fore leg should, however, be held up on the same side as the operator stands. Should the horse struggle violently and denote positive agony when the hand is approaching the region of the kidneys, the signs may be considered conclusive without attempting farther exploration. Should the animal remain quiet at first, nevertheless let the operator be cautious, as the too near vicinity to the inflamed part provokes resistance, which, in its utter heedlessness, is closely allied to madness.
A CERTAIN TEST FOR INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS.
Several reasons will suggest the point at which the hand should pause. In the first place, pressure cannot benefit a delicately-formed and a diseased organ. In the second place, the agony of the animal may endanger the safety of the operator. In the last place, anything approaching to downright resistance brings the muscles that pass under the kidneys into energetic action, which circumstance is by no means favorable to ultimate recovery.
Many men can speak of the pain induced by affections of the kidneys. The torture consequent upon disease of an internal organ appears to be so excessive as at times to destroy reason in the human being. No one can look upon a horse suffering from nephritis, without feeling that, in sensibilities at all events, the two creatures are alike. Sympathy has been interpreted to mean no more than a conscious similarity of emotion. Such a definition must be erroneous, or more sympathy would actuate man toward his slave. The life is devoted to the service of the master. The body is disabled before its time for the pleasure of mankind. The horse is such a slave as no words can express. It lives but to obey. Its master's whim is the animal's joy. It is happy to exist where and how its superior may appoint. Still there is no sympathy felt toward its tortures, no feeling evinced for its sufferings: its life is one long solitude, its death is the degradation of misery. Were man to read of some wild beast capable of such sincere docility, what pains would not be spent to secure so valuable a companion! The animal is beside him and it is disregarded; or its goodness is converted into the means for its mutilation.
The additional treatment of nephritis consists more in the food than in the physic; linseed, both the seeds and the infusion, may be given for the body's support. The best oats should be procured upon recovery, and the quality of the hay also should be attended to; as for physic, that is almost limited to belladonna and to aconite. Belladonna is administered mixed with four times its amount of opium, so long as the pain is acute.
| Extract of belladonna | Half a drachm. |
| Crude opium | Two drachms. |
Make into a ball with linseed meal and honey; give three daily while the symptoms require them; or, should the pain be excessive, administer one every hour.