It is evident that such titles have only the significance accorded them, and the term chronic indigestion used only to mean that gastric digestion was badly performed, and that the condition was more or less permanent. It being granted, on the other hand, that the term indigestion is used to characterise temporary conditions during which digestion is suspended, and produces immediate disturbance, it would appear that the term gastric dyspepsia is more exact and more in conformity with the present state of our knowledge of general physiology. In studying this question it is clear a number of facts still require explanation, for, as has been previously indicated, we know almost nothing concerning the variations in the chemical phenomena of gastric digestion under different morbid conditions; nevertheless, the dominant fact, the imperfect or irregular digestion, is easily appreciable. Future discoveries will no doubt enable us more exactly to differentiate several dyspeptic conditions due to chemical or mechanical causes and with or without anatomical lesions. At present it is sufficient to indicate the limits of inquiry. =Causation.= The symptom of chronic tympanites accompanies a great number of very different conditions—some due to disease of the digestive tract itself, others to general diseases or lesions of neighbouring parts. In the latter cases the tympanites is only indicative of secondary dyspepsia; in the former, on the other hand, the dyspepsia is primary. Secondary dyspepsia occurs very commonly during tuberculosis, diseases of the liver, subacute or chronic peritonitis, gestation, lesions of the mediastinum, etc., etc. =(a) Secretory or Chemical Dyspepsia.= In primary dyspepsia it is impossible to discover any lesion sufficient to explain the disturbance. Chronic tympanites, for instance, follows prolonged consumption of rough or bad food (in years when forage has been scarce or winter food has been lacking), and too short a supply of water for weeks in succession. It also occurs as a consequence of acute inflammation of one or other of the gastric compartments—rumenitis, reticulitis, gastritis. Sometimes it assumes an insidious, slow, progressive form, without any apparent cause whatever. In these various conditions, the mucous membrane of the gastric compartments suffers from the deferred results of the bad feeding or want of water. Its secretory powers and anatomical structure becoming modified, it is no longer able regularly to elaborate the juices necessary for digestion, and chronic indigestion, imperfect digestion, or dyspepsia result. Similar results follow acute inflammation of the omasum, reticulum, or rumen. Integral repair becomes impossible. Anatomical injury is done, disturbance of secretion follows, and dyspepsia is a necessary consequence.