This disease is very frequently confounded with the foregoing. A distinction, however, exists,--since inflammation appears in this disease, while it is absent in the former. In this affection, inflammation of the large intestines takes place, which is attended with diarrhoea. The _faeces_ are covered with blood; the animal rapidly becomes prostrated, and death frequently comes to his relief. Youatt says: "It is, however, with dysentery that the practitioner is most loth to cope,--a disease that betrays thousands of cattle. This, also, may be either acute or chronic. Its causes are too often buried in obscurity, and its premonitory symptoms are disregarded or unknown. There appears to be a strong predisposition in cattle to take on this disease. It seems to be the winding-up of many serious complaints, and the foundation of it is sometimes laid by those that appear to be of the most trifling nature. It is that in cattle which glanders and farcy are in the horse,--the breaking up of the constitution. "Dysentery may be a symptom and concomitant of other diseases. It is one of the most fearful characteristics of murrain; it is the destructive accompaniment, or consequence, of phthisis. It is produced by the sudden disappearance of a cutaneous eruption; it follows the cessation of chronic hoose; it is the consequence of the natural or artificial suspension of every secretion. Were any secretion to be particularly selected, the repression of which would produce dysentery, it would be that of the milk. How often does the farmer observe that no sooner does a milch cow cease her usual supply of milk than she begins to purge! There may not appear to be any thing else the matter with her; but she purges, and, in the majority of cases, that purging is fatal. "It may, sometimes, however, be traced to sufficient causes, exclusive of previous disease. Unwholesome food--exposure to cold--neglect at the time of calving--low and marshy situations--the feeding in meadows that have been flooded, where it is peculiarly fatal--the grazing (according to Mr. Leigh, and our experience confirms his statement) upon the clays lying over the blue lias rock--the neighborhood of woods and of half-stagnant rivers--the continuation of unusually sultry weather--overwork, and all the causes of acute dysentery, may produce that of a chronic nature; an acute dysentery--neglected, or badly, or even most skillfully treated--may degenerate into an incurable chronic affection. Half starve a cow, or over-feed her, milk her to exhaustion, or dry her milk too rapidly--and dysentery may follow.