39 8 
THOMAS GIFFEN. 
My experience has been that peritonitis is more common 
than muco-enteritis following - indigestion, and usually the result 
of rupture of the serous coat or extreme tension thereof. 
How often we are called in at an advanced stage of the dis¬ 
ease. The bowels and stomach are distended to an enormous, 
extent. The trocar is used and partial relief is given, but symp¬ 
toms of peritonitis remain, and in a few hours the animal 
succumbs, post-mortem revealing rupture of peritoneum, fol¬ 
lowed by peritonitis and death. 
Having had no experience with the use of stomach-pump, 
or passing of probang or other hollow tube, either by mouth or 
per rectum, I will refrain from comment, hoping to get the 
experience of several present. 
Acute indigestion, as a rule, is very satisfactory to treat, yet 
we meet with cases that seem to be doomed from the very start, 
and in spite of all we can do the animal succumbs in the une¬ 
qual contest, and another is added to the already long list of 
ailures to save. Yet all such cases serve a purpose. They tell 
us that our remedies are not all-efficient, and that we must cast 
about for some greater antiseptics, and that the science of med¬ 
icine, as known to-day, is far from being perfect, and that the 
field for research is vast, and that great things may yet be 
achieved if we but apply ourselves diligently to the task. 
PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE. 
A paper read before the Veterinary Medical Association of the County of New York. 
By Thos. Giffen, M.R.C.V.S., New York City. 
A desire to avoid repetition in this paper of many matters, 
which have heretofore been presented, more or less elaborately, 
to various veterinary associations by essayists who have given 
the subject of professional etiquette their attention, will, I fear, 
compel me to be very brief. Brevity, it has been said, is the 
soul of wit, and if in even a brief treatment of the subject I bring 
