It attacks animals in good or bad condition, without distinction of breed or species. It begins towards the end of July, attains its maximum development towards the end of August and September, and disappears in October, though occasionally it continues until November. In exceptional cases Degoix has seen it during January and February in animals which had returned from the fields to the byres about the end of November. It develops earlier than verminous bronchitis, in conjunction with which, however, it often occurs. It is commonest in warm, moist, rainy years, and amongst animals pastured on swampy ground containing numerous springs and streams. Year after year it attacks animals occupying particular pastures in summer. The soil of these pastures is undoubtedly infested with the germs of the disease, just as in places the soil is infested with anthrax bacilli. The appearance of symptoms is preceded by an incubation period of one or two months. The length of this incubation period is fixed by the observations which Degoix has made during the past twenty years, and depends on the time which elapses between the animals being turned into infected pastures and the appearance of the preliminary symptoms. =Symptoms.= The disease commences with liquid, serous, fœtid, greenish-black diarrhœa, the material being voided without special straining and the animals losing neither their spirits nor appetite. Fever can scarcely be detected, the temperature ranging between 38° and 39° C. On the second or third day the diarrhœa changes in character. Though it always remains fœtid, it now becomes mucous, reddish-black, or sanguinolent, and contains more or less frequent blood clots of varying size. The passage of this material causes violent straining, which becomes more and more common, and is accompanied by very pronounced rectal tenesmus. The animals stand with their backs arched for one or two minutes, sometimes longer, and the liquid escapes in large quantities, soiling the quarters and hocks. The animals are dull, show a certain degree of colic, and frequently grind the teeth. Appetite is lost, thirst is severe, and rumination ceases. Wasting makes rapid strides, the coat stares, the animals have difficulty in standing on account of their weakness, fever sets in, and the temperature rises to 40° C. This condition may last from five to ten days and terminate either in recovery or death. Recovery is frequently rapid in animals which have continued to eat, and in which the acute period has been of short duration—five to seven days at most. On the other hand, it is slow if the appetite has disappeared and the acute period has been prolonged beyond ten days. The diarrhœa, which has lost its sanguinolent character towards the sixth or eighth day, may continue for somewhat longer. The attacks of straining become rare, and cease between the tenth and fifteenth days. The appetite remains capricious for a long time.