iar and characteristic
fetor (suggesting rotten cheese), which continually grows worse. The
quantity of water and mucus steadily increases, the normal predominance of
fatty matters becoming modified by the presence of considerable undigested
casein, which is not present in the normal feces, and in acute cases death
may result in one or two days from the combined drain on the system and the
poisoning by the absorbed products of the decomposition in the stomach and
bowels. When the case is prolonged the passages, at first 5 or 6 a day,
increase to 15 or 20, and pass with more and more straining, so that they
are projected from the animal in a liquid stream. The color of the feces,
at first yellow, becomes a lighter grayish yellow or a dirty white (hence
the name white scour), and the fetor becomes intolerable.

At first the calf retains its appetite, but as the severity of the disease
increases the animal shows less and less disposition to suck, and has lost
all vivacity, lying dull and listless, and, when raised, walking weakly and
unsteadily. Flesh is lost rapidly, the hair stands erect, the skin gets dry
and scurfy, the nose is dry and hot, or this condition alternates with a
moist and cool one. By this time the mouth and skin, as well as the breath
and dung, exhale the peculiar, penetrating, sour, offensive odor, and the
poor calf has become an object of disgust to all that approach it. At
first, and unless inflammation of the stomach and bowels supervenes (and
unless the affection has started in indigestion and colic), the belly is
not bloated or painful on pressure, symptoms of acute colicky pains are
absent, and the bowels do not rumble; neither are bubbles of gas mingled
with the feces. The irritant products of the intestinal fermentations may,
however, irritate and excoriate the skin around the anus, which becomes
red, raw, and broken out in sores for some distance. Similarly the rectum,
exposed by reason of the relaxed condition of the anus, or temporarily in
straining to pass the liquid dejection, is of a more or less deep red, and
it may be ulcerated. Fever, with rapid pulse and increased breathing and
temperature, usually comes on with the very fetid character of the feces
and is more pronounced as the bowels become inflamed, the abdomen sore to
the touch and tucked up, and the feces more watery and even mixed with
blood.

_Prevention._--The prevention of these cases is the prevention of
constipation and indi