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.