Of all extensive inflammations fever is the constant result and accompaniment, rising as the inflammation rises or extends, and subsiding as the inflammation subsides. It also occurs as a distinct affection, as in all the infectious diseases, as the result of a specific irritating poison in the system, and then is the manifestation of the disease, while a local inflammation may or may not be present as a special secondary feature of the malady or as an accidental complication. _Symptoms of Fever._ Fever is marked by certain definite stages, each of which has its own special manifestations. In the cases due to a specific disease germ, or _contagium_, these are, however, preceded by a period of _latency_ or _incubation_ in which no symptoms whatever are manifest, but during this time the germ is rapidly multiplying in the system, and it is only when it has gained a certain increase that it disorders the nervous system, wastes the tissues, raises the temperature of the body, and induces the other phenomena of fever. The same may be said to hold in the fever attending on inflammation. The slight and circumscribed inflammation is at first productive of no fever, and it is only when it gains a certain extent that the nerves and nutrition are disordered so as to bring about a feverish condition. _Premonitory Symptoms._ These usually last but a few hours and are often entirely absent or unnoticed. There is a lack of the customary vigor and spirit, an indisposition to exertion, a loss of clearness and vivacity of the eye, a manifest dullness, with hanging of the head, and frequent shifting of the limbs as if fatigued. Appetite is less sharp and ruminants chew the cud less heartily or persistently. _Cold Stage._ These are soon succeeded by the _chill_, _rigor_, or _shivering fit_, in which the hair, especially that along the back, stands erect (staring coat), the skin is cold and adherent to the structures beneath (hidebound), the extremities (legs, tail, ears, horns, nose) are cold, and the frame is agitated with slight tremors, or even a shivering so violent that a wooden floor or building is made to rattle. The back is arched, the legs brought nearer together (crouching), the mouth is cool and clammy, the breathing hurried, the pulse weak, and it may be rapid, but with a hard beat, the bowels costive, and the urine higher colored than natural. The temperature of the interior of the body, taken by a thermometer in the rectum, is already found above the normal, the excessive destruction of tissue having begun, and the blood driven from the cooler surface, and accumulating in the hot interior, at once favors tissue change and maintains the extra heat thereby produced. In cattle the end of the tail is soft and flaccid from this stage onward. The _cold stage_ lasts a few minutes, or one or two days in different cases.