Accompaniment of parturition fever and apoplexy. Essential glycosuria. Dense saccharine urine, passed often, congested mucosæ, emaciation. Lesions uncertain. In parturition fever and apoplexy the congested medulla is the reasonable starting point. Toxic glycosuria. Treatment: addressed to the primary disease or poison; otherwise treat as in the horse.
In cattle this has been observed as a symptomatic affection in connection with parturition fever or apoplexy (Nocard, St. Cyr, Violet). One case of essential mellituria has been recorded by Darbas.
Symptoms. In the last mentioned case in a work ox, the animal, when at work, would stop every five or ten minutes to urinate, passing a small quantity of amber colored urine of a high density and containing a large amount of glucose. The conjunctiva was pink, the animal considerably emaciated, and rest and generous feeding brought about no improvement, so that the subject was finally sent to the butcher to anticipate a natural death.
The lesions in this case are altogether hypothetical. The red eyes might imply congestion of the encephalon (medulla), but the redness might be caused by active disease in the liver, pancreas or kidney. The failure to notice jaundice does not indicate a healthy liver, as some of the most fatal diseases of that organ are unattended by icterus. The frequent emission of urine in small amounts would imply irritation in kidneys or bladder, from which the glycogenic stimulus may have started. In the absence of any more definite evidence of disease in other organs it is, however, more probable that the fundamental disorder resided in the liver, the great glycogenic factor of the body.
In parturition fever, the presumption is in favor of considering the congested medulla as the starting point of the disease, yet in view of the manifest paralysis of stomach and bowels, it is not improbable that the vascular congestion and paralysis of the chylopoietic viscera constituted the initial step in the morbid process, while the glycogenesis was the result of a reflex operation on the liver.
Toxic mellituria would occur in cattle under the same conditions as in the horse.
Treatment is only hopeful in the sympathetic and toxic forms. These must be treated according to the nature of the primary disease or the poison. To these the general principles of treatment as recommended for the horse should be superadded. For essential diabetes an exclusively milk diet and any one of the agents that have given good results in man or horse can be tried, but with an animal in fair condition it will be better as a rule to turn him over to the butcher.
GLYCOSURIA IN THE DOG.
More common than in horses and cattle. Causes: pampered in diet, sweets, liver, disease of pituitary body, or mostly of the liver. Removal of pancreas. Brain and nervous lesions and reflex action. Symptoms: pampered asthmatic subject, with dysuria and lameness, dense, saccharine urine, bulimia, loss of weight, corneal ulcers, cataracts, palsy, coma. Duration: 4 to 8 months, sugar may disappear with complete liver degeneration. Diagnosis: by pampered condition, asthma, thirst, diuresis, later by loss of weight, troubles of vision, saccharine urine. Lesions: usually hypertrophied, fatty or caseated liver, thickened capsule, disease of thyroid, heart and eye. Treatment: skim or butter milk as sole diet, restricted diet of lean meat clear of fat, warmth, dryness, pure air, sunshine, gentle exercise only, cholagogues, sodium sulphate, or chloride, or carbonate, or salicylate, salol, nitro-muriatic acid, antithermics, ergot, codeine, bitters, mineral acids, derivatives.
Among domestic animals the dog has furnished the greatest number of cases, yet even in this animal the disease appears to be far from common.