External symptoms, arched back, stiff gait, straining, tender loins,
backing, turning, dropping under weight, urine checked, dribbled; in
dogs and cats, palpation of kidney; bladder, urethra, pains in
different animals. Internal symptoms, rectal exploration, vaginal,
urethral, straining, ureters, bladder, calculi, neoplasms, prostate,
urethritis.
=External Symptoms.= With inflammatory or painful affections of the
urinary organs the animal tends to roach the back or loins, tuck up the
abdomen, move the hind limbs stiffly and with a straddling gait,
protract and withdraw the penis which may be semi-erect, retract and
drop the testicles alternately, and stretch himself and strain to pass
urine without success. Lying down and rising may be accomplished with
marked effort and groaning. The loins along the spines or beneath the
outer ends of the transverse processes may prove tender to tapping or
pinching, the animal drooping to excess. Backing or turning in a narrow
circle may be accomplished awkwardly and stiffly though usually more
easily than with lumbar sprain. The animal drops when mounted but less
than with sprained back. Urine may be passed in excess or in diminished
amount, or it may be entirely suppressed. It may be abruptly interrupted
when in full stream, suggesting calculus or polypus, or it may be passed
often in mere dribblets, or finally it may ooze away constantly partly
lodging in the sheath and partly trickling down the thighs.
In dogs or cats with flaccid walls of the abdomen external manipulation
may detect in the kidneys, differences in size, position, and tenderness
as well as the presence of tumors. The distended bladder also may be
distinctly felt, and the pyriform area of flatness on percussion will
serve to map out its size and outline.
In the horse the urethra is superficial and easily traced over the
ischiatic arch and for some distance downward, when it becomes deeper
and is less easily felt. In the bull the urethra is deep over the
ischiatic arch but becomes more superficial lower down and can be easily
felt at the sigmoid flexure and below. In sheep and dog it is easily
followed from the ischium to the end of the penis.
As a rule the penis is easily drawn from its sheath in the horse and
dog; this is more difficult in the sheep and goat and still more so in
the bull and boar. In the small animal protrusion is favored by setting
him on his rump, with his back between the operator’s legs, and the
pelvis doubled forward toward the sternum. The penis of the bull may be
extended in presence of a cow in heat, and promptly seized, or it may be
seized through the sheath back of its first bulging part and skillfully
worked out. In the ruminant, calculi may be felt at the sigmoid curve,
and in the ram, in the vermiform appendix at the fore end of the penis.
=Internal Exploration.= This is accomplished in the larger animals with
the oiled hand in the rectum, the nails having been pared short and even
to avoid injury to the mucosa. In ponies and yearlings the kidney may be
felt, and this may be true also of mature animals of larger species in
cases of hypertrophy or floating kidney. The ureters, bladder and
intrapelvic urethra are easily felt in the male. The empty bladder lies
on the anterior border of the pelvis; when full, it projects forward
into the abdomen but retains its pyriform or, in the very young animal,
its fusiform shape. In the female the sensation is somewhat modified by
the presence on its upper surface of the uterus dividing into its two
horns anteriorly. The single enlarged horn of pregnancy is especially
misleading.
The female urethra, cervix and bladder may be explored through the
vagina. To explore the cervix vesicæ and urethra the fingers are slowly
drawn back from the bladder along the median line of the floor of the
vagina. In the _mare_ the cervix and adjacent portion of the bladder can
be further explored with the index finger introduced through the opening
of the urethra in the floor of the pelvis and at the junction of the
vagina and vulva. In the cow the urethra is too small to be readily
explored from within, and the orifice is still further guarded by the
two lateral blind canals of Gærtner, into which the unskilled fingers
more readily pass. Success only attends the careful search for the small
central lower orifice. In the _smaller animals_ the finger only can be
introduced into vagina or rectum and the urethra, cervix and bladder
only can be felt. _The result of such exploration_ is straining even in
healthy conditions but which becomes excessive in nephritis, pyelitis,
renal, urethral, vesical or urethral calculus, cystitis, rectitis or
enteritis.
The _ureters_ are tender when inflamed, and they are swollen in calculus
obstruction with an elastic feeling in front of the stone.
The _bladder_ is very sensitive when overdistended, inflamed or pendent
on the abdominal floor, or when the seat of calculus. In the absence of
any liquid contents a calculus is felt as a hard solid mass firmly
clasped by the contracted vesical walls. If liquid is present the solid
hard calculus is felt movable in the fluid. An empty contracted bladder
is firm and pyriform. An empty flaccid bladder, resulting from rupture
or exhaustion, is flabby, with indefinite form and, if the seat of a
lesion, tender. It varies in consistency with neoplasms (papilloma,
sarcoma, carcinoma, or epithelioma). These have not the free mobility of
the calculus floating in urine, and their point of connection with the
wall may often be made out. When a solid body is felt, or suspected to
be in the contracted bladder, an injection of sterilized water will
usually facilitate diagnosis, and a differentiation of calculus and
neoplasm.
_Hypertrophy_ of the prostate is felt as a swelling of uneven outline
over the cervix vesicæ. It is to be looked for especially in old dogs.
_Urethritis_ is indicated by swelling and tenderness along the median
line of the pelvic floor, back of the cervix. With a _calculus_ in the
urethra the swelling is more strictly localized and the canal in front
of it may be full and elastic.