Treatment. Treatment comprises the use of many of the drugs used in acute cystitis, particularly benzoate of soda, benzoic acid, and bicarbonate of soda. The medicines comprised in the balsamic group are also valuable, viz., turpentine, tar, and terpine.
In this chronic form the bladder should be irrigated, but this must be done with strict aseptic precautions, the fluids used being cooled boiled water, boric acid or borax solution of 3 per cent, strength, or solution of fluoride of soda of a strength of 15 grains to the quart.
We need not point out the difficulties of pursuing this treatment in ordinary practice. As a rule, treatment is confined to internal medication whilst the animals are fattened.
URINARY LITHIASIS. CALCULUS FORMATION.
Normally the urine contains in solution certain salts, such as urates, hippurates and phosphates of lime, magnesia or ammonia. Under certain circumstances, in animals predisposed to the condition, these salts are precipitated in the kidneys, ureters or bladder, and form powdery or sandy deposits known as sediments; or, on the other hand, calculi, produced by the adhesion of the powdery masses. This constitutes urinary lithiasis.
The sediments are of a greyish-yellow colour.
The calculi are generally rose-coloured, white or somewhat grey. They contain oxalates and carbonates of lime and magnesia, earthy phosphates, etc. In appearance and shape they vary greatly. They may resemble coral or may form growths of a rounded, polyhedric or raspberry appearance. Some are hard and resistant; others friable. They vary in size between that of a grain of sand and a hen’s egg or more. A large calculus is usually solitary; the smaller sizes are often multiple.
Calculi occur in oxen and sheep, but more particularly in the latter species. They develop slowly without producing any marked external signs, and often it is only when the urethra becomes obstructed and urine is retained that the diagnosis is established. Calculi are rare in females in consequence of the dilatability of the urethra.
CALCULI IN BOVINE ANIMALS.
Causation. The older writers believed that calculi developed through winter feeding and a stinted supply of water. Nowadays this would not apply to well-managed establishments, water being provided regularly, and winter feeding comprising roots, etc., rich in water. Experience and observation have shown that the chief cause is excessive feeding, calculus formation occurring most frequently in animals which are most richly fed.