patient with a mallet for the bona fide pur pose of restoring his health, though this might be malpractice, it would be no assault." This doctrine is applied, in the absence of statutes of abortion, to the case of a woman consenting to an abortion upon her person. Com. т. Parker, 9 Mete. 263; 43 Am. Dec. 396; State t'. Cooper, 2 Zab. 52; 51 Am. Dec. 248. But if one kills another at his request, it is murder. Blackburn z1. State, 23 Ohio St. 146. A curious action was brought recently in Germany against a sur geon for the recovery of the plaintiff's leg which he had amputated and assumed to carry away. I should think that title would not pass without consent and delivery. It would be superfluous to dwell on legis lation against duelling and challenges to duels, or to remark on the amelioration of the ancient law by which trial by combat was permitted. And so of the inhibition and detestation of suicide at common law, so different from the respectability of the act in classic times and countries. But where the assault cannot be effectu ated without the active, innocent assistance and co-operation of the assaulted person, courts differ. As for example, where one delivers to another a deleterious drug which the latter incorporates into his own frame. In Com. v. Stratton, 114 Mass. 303; 19 Am. Rep. 350, the prisoner having given a young woman figs containing " love powders," to wit: cantharides, of which she ate, this was held an assault and battery; and so in People v, Blake, i Wheel. Cr. Cas. 490, it was held where a "young black woman" put cow-itch into Mrs. Blyth's bathing water (although no stress was laid on the prison er's youth or color); and this was followed in Carr v. State, 135 Ind. i; 41 Am. St. Rep. 408; 20 L. R. A. 863; but in Garnet v. State, i Tex. Ct. App. 605; 28 Am. Rep. 425, it was held to the contrary in respect to putting strychnine in coffee, and to the latter effect are English cases. Reg. v. Hassam, 2 С. & К. 912. If there had been
a law court in Eden, it is impossible to imagine what it would have held of Eve's administering the apple to her spouse. The law sometimes deems that a person has been assaulted even where he was igno rant of it. As where a woman is deceived by her physician as to the surgical necessity or propriety of his interference with her body. Reg. v. Case, i Den. С. С. 580. And so if the complainant was asleep or otherwise insensible at the time, or had not sense enough to know that the act was un lawful. Com. г1. Stratton, sufra. And so if a wife consents to intercourse with a stranger, supposing him to be her husband. Rex v. Williams, 8 C. & P. 286. And so where a boy of eight ignorantly acquiesces in indecent liberties. Reg. v. Lock, L. R. 2 C. C. lo. The doctrine that a woman may not complain of familiarities or vio lence to which she consented is too fa miliar to justify the citation of authorities. It has generally been held that where a wife yields to a stranger supposing him to be her husband, it is not rape. Bloodworth v. State, 6 Baxt. 614; 32 Am. Rep. 546. But in Ireland they hold rule more humane and consistent with morality. Queen v. Dee. 15 Сох С. С. 579. But though the law does not allow one to assault himself, nor consent to an assault on himself by another, yet it will countenance him in assaulting another to protect himself. As in the famous case of Laidlaw v. Sage, 73 Hun. 125, where the defendant, fearing a crank who had come into his office demand ing money with a threat of blowing him up with a dynamite bomb which he had in his bag in case of refusal, slyly pulled the plain tiff between the crank and himself, under pretense of shaking hands with him, and the plaintiff was in consequence badly shattered by the explosion. Mr. Sage is the notorious "put and call " broker of New York, but the court held that as Laidlaw had not called for this action, Sage could not lawfully put him in the position of a human shield. At
