The application of blisters or of anti-parasitic dressings, or infriction with grey ointment over extensive surfaces, favours this intoxication. It may result from direct local intra-cutaneous absorption, from vapour given off by mercurial applications obtaining entrance into the body through the broncho-pulmonary and digestive tracts, from vapour given off by metallic mercury (as in ships’ holds), or from ingestion of mercurial compounds licked off the skin, as certainly occurs. Hitherto in all discussions, even the most recent, on the mechanism of poisoning, partisans of different views do not appear to have given sufficient attention to these now clearly proved facts. The conclusion to be drawn is that in animals of the bovine species mercurial preparations ought to be used with caution, and that even under such conditions stomatitis may appear. Finally, it should be remembered that all lesions of the kidney indicated by albuminuria and other signs, and all lesions of the liver, favour poisoning by checking or preventing the elimination of mercury by the kidney, or by interfering with its transformation in the hepatic cells. =Nature.= Regarding the essential nature of stomatitis, it would appear (according to the work carried out in 1890 by Gallipe on mercurial stomatitis in man), that we should regard it as a septic stomatitis, and not as a primary toxic stomatitis. The mercury absorbed by the body not only produces salivation, but a very important change in the chemical composition of the saliva. The vitality and toxicity of the saprophytic microbes normally present in the buccal cavity appear greatly to increase, and although only the most trifling erosions may exist in the mucous membrane, true intra-mucous inoculation takes place, and forms the point of origin for septic stomatitis. It has been found that it is not even necessary to have lesions in the buccal mucous membrane; in fact, this is the weak point in the theory emitted. Nor is a modification in the chemical composition of the saliva sufficient; for when a mixture of iodine and the iodides, for example, is being given, the saliva is chemically modified, and yet stomatitis, properly so-called, does not occur. What seems most probable is that mercurial stomatitis is a toxi-infectious stomatitis, in the development of which mercury acts primarily by its toxic effect on the salivary glands, whose secretion it modifies, and on the buccal epithelium, the renewal of which it checks. Infection of the mucous membrane is thereby favoured, even in the absence of any previous lesion, and stomatitis develops.