Doctors versus Law. ply. We have not engaged passage yet. It may not be amiss to remark, however, that there are distinctions known to the law, that bear in their technicalities a resemblance to the one suggested. I am reminded here—yes, same old story. It may be old, yet it had a new setting. The subject was a farmer unacquainted with legal terms. He confided to his counsel who had in preparation a case for him. "What's this I hear about a cality?" "A cality," came the reply, "don't know of any such thing." "It's a cality I hear is going to make me trouble." "A cality, trouble, really you mustn't listen to all the foolish talk people pour into your ears. I don't know what you mean." "Well, I'm told that if I lose my case it vill be on account of a cality and I want to know what kind of a thing it is." "Oh, yes, same old technicality." To go on with the other story, the disad vantage of the physician when it comes to a rash killing of a patient, consists not so much in having killed, or who is killed, or how it is done, but to what medical school the killer belongs. If he is a regular, the chances are it will not be manslaughter but only the in evitable. If he is an irregular, a Oiristian science, a faith healer, or what not, there will be trouble. It will not come from the de ceased, nor from his relatives and friends. It will be from the regulars. When it comes to killing through gross negligence the phy sician can best protect himself from the charge by being a regular when it is done. The civil liability of the physician to an swer for his acts in damages is a far more serious question to him than the criminal one, for the latter seldom arises, while the former may be more frequently met. Phy sicians and surgeons who hold themselves out to the world to practice in their profes sion by so doing impliedlv contract with those who employ them that they possess a reasonable amount of care, skill, diligence and learning. The skill is not so much stuff
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as can be bought by the yard, open to in spection with its damaged spots. The buyer does not have to take the chances of what he is getting, but it becomes the duty of the seller to furnish what is impliedly contracted for, sight unseen as it were, according to the barter of boyhood days. He is bound not only to exercise such reasonable care, skill and diligence, but is liable for the want of the same. The only object any one has in sending for a physician is that he will cure the pa tient. If, however, all physicians cured all patients there would be a long time between funerals for the undertakers, and the earth might become overcrowded. While a doctor is sent for to bring about a cure the law does not expect him to cure, either as a rule or as an exception. It only requires of him to use reasonable care, skill and diligence. If in using the same the cure is worse than the disease the physician is blameless in the eyes of the law. Further if it happens that the patient does not recover or that a complete cure is not effected, there is to be no presumption against the healer on that account. He may have done all in his power, may have been up against the real thing and had his hand called. He is not to suffer thereby. Proof of no cure alone is not sufficient under any circumstances to make the physician an swerable in damages. Some negligence or want of skill must be added to bring that about. The implied contract of a physician is not that he will certainly effect a cure but that he will use all known and reasonable means to accomplish that object. That he will attend his patient carefully and diligently. That he will use such reasonable skill as is ordinarily exercised by others in his profession. He must be up with the times. It will not be sufficient for him to use such skill as was ordinarily exercised in his profession a gen eration ago, or often a decade ago, or when he attended a medical school. Since such a time the treatment of a particular disease
