found directly in the median line of the
floor of the vulva, about 4-1/2 inches from its external opening.

GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF DISEASE.

These apply especially to acute inflammations and the irritation caused
by stone. The animal moves stiffly on the hind limbs, straddles, and
makes frequent attempts to pass urine, which may be in excess, deficient
in amount, liable to sudden arrest in spite of the straining, passed in
driblets, or entirely suppressed. Again, it may be modified in density
or constituents. Difficulty in making a sharp turn, or in lying down and
rising with or without groaning, dropping the back when mounted or when
pinched on the loins is suggestive of kidney disease, and so to a less
extent are swelled legs, dropsy, and diseases of the skin and nervous
system. The oiled hand introduced through the rectum may feel the
bladder beneath and detect any overdistention, swelling, tenderness, or
stone. In ponies the kidneys even may be reached.

EXAMINATION OF THE URINE.

In some cases the changes in the urine are the sole sign of disease. In
health the horse's urine is of a deep amber color and has a strong odor.
On a feed of grain and hay it may show a uniform transparency, while on
a green ration there in an abundant white deposit of carbonate of lime.
Of its morbid changes the following are to be looked for: (1) _Color_:
White from deposited salts of lime; brown or red from blood clots or
coloring matter; yellow or orange from bile or blood pigment; pale from
excess of water; or variously colored from vegetable ingredients
(santonin makes it red; rhubarb or senna, brown; tar or carbolic acid,
green). (2) _Density_: The horse's urine may be 1.030 or 1.050, but it
may greatly exceed this in diabetes and may sink to 1.007 in diuresis.
(3) _Chemical reaction_, as ascertained by blue litmus or red test
papers. The horse on vegetable diet has alkaline urine turning red test
papers blue, while in the sucking colt and the horse fed on flesh or on
his own tissue (in starvation or abstinence during disease) it is acid,
turning blue litmus red. (4) _Organic constituents_, as when glairy from
albumen coagulable by strong nitric acid and boiling, when charged with
microscopic casts of the uriniferous tubes, with the eggs or bodies of
worms, with sugar, blood, or bile. (5) _In its salts_, which may
crystallize out spontaneously, or on boiling, or on the addition of
chemical reagents.

[Illustration: PLATE VIII