During the second phase, corresponding to the development of almost adult distomata, the perihepatitis and peritonitis set up either produce fatal results by secondary infection or diminish and disappear. The parasites develop in the bile ducts, in which they attain the adult condition. They steadily ascend towards the origins of the ducts, dilating them in their passage in an extraordinary way. The number of parasites varies greatly: sometimes there are but few, and they are only discovered on post-mortem examination; in other cases the bile ducts are crammed with them, as many as six or seven hundred or even a thousand being present. The distended bile ducts always show chronic peripheral inflammation, which steadily becomes aggravated, producing pericanalicular atrophying sclerosis. This condition is followed by change in and disappearance of a certain quantity of hepatic tissue, and by various forms of vascular and secretory disease. This is the period of greatest disturbance, not only in consequence of the actual presence, but also of the mode of living, of the parasites. Moussu declares that the parasites live principally on blood, at least during the first and second stage of their sojourn in the liver, adducing as proof that if one completely injects the vascular system of the liver (arteries and veins), some of the injected matter will be found a day afterwards in the digestive apparatus of the parasites. The disturbances which they produce are therefore due to their actual presence and its consequences, to their mode of life, and to the intercurrent infections of which they are sometimes the initial cause. It is idle to object that the part played by these parasites is less important than has been suggested, and that the mortality results from intercurrent infection, and not from the parasites themselves. It is equally idle to point out that carcases of animals suffering from severe infection with distomata, particularly the carcases of sheep, are frequently found in slaughter-houses, in perfectly fat condition, and with the appearance of not having suffered in any way. These observations are perfectly correct and well founded. But it matters little that death results from an infection superadded to the distomatosis, if the presence of distomata is the determining factor in causing the superadded infections, and if such infection is, as Moussu believes, almost inevitable in animals already exhausted by the action of the parasites.