PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE. 
399 
under your notice a few matters which are worthy of the earnest 
consideration of my fellow professionals I will have succeeded 
in giving to my words a soul which will enable them to live 
later in your thoughts. 
Etiquette, socially speaking, may be regarded as a standard 
set up by time and experience to direct the individual to the 
Path of accepted propriety. There will at all times arise differ¬ 
ences of opinion as to what is propriety in social affairs, there 
being many cases to be decided which are governed by abso¬ 
lutely new conditions and which can only be decided according 
to a sense of individual propriety. Writers on etiquette have 
arbitrarily prescribed rules of conduct for society in general, and, 
although disagreeing in respect to various particulars, they have 
kept steadily in sight the necessity of upholding a standard for 
general adoption. I do not think it requires to be argued in 
Older to convince us that society, as well as the individual, needs 
to protect itself in some way against the freaks of the thought¬ 
less, the vagaries of the audacious and the pretensions of the in¬ 
solent. 1 he instances are numerous which I might cite in 
support of this. Nor is there anything incompatible with the 
spirit of equality in the assertion of a necessity for the existence 
of such a recognized standard; it is simply an acknowledgment 
of a right inherent in every individual, a right which concerns, 
his liberty and happiness. 
It is none the less true that members of professions find if 
just as necessary to have an understanding with their fellow 
practitioners as to matters regarding which there is much oppor¬ 
tunity for and actually is—conflict. Only by a due conformity 
to that which, written or unwritten, is recognized as profession¬ 
al etiquette can complications between fellow professionals be 
prevented. The necessity for inculcating the adoption of well 
defined methods in professional life is apparent to every member 
of the veterinarian body who has had a mature experience in the 
practice of his profession. There are many matters of frequent 
occurrence in the exercise of his duties which bring the veterin¬ 
arian face to face with difficulties that would be entirely avoided 
