770 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



practice of medicine was despised and confined to the humbler ranks 

 of society and to slaves. Not until the influence of Grecian civiliza- 

 tion made itself felt in the Roman capital did physicians gain honor 

 or standing. 



In the middle ages the calling suffered a relapse, to speak medically. 

 Surgery was in ill repute, and Sprengel tells us that in Germany no 

 artisan would employ a young man as an apprentice without a certifi- 

 cate that he was born in marriage of honest parents, and came of a 

 family in which were found neither barbers, bathers nor " skinners," as 

 surgeons were called. 



Even at the present day, although the meritorious claims of the 

 medical and surgical practitioner have been recognized, and an honor- 

 able social status awarded him, his mind is not at rest. The advance- 

 ment and refinement of ideas have begotten deeper anxieties, and a 

 feeling of responsibility. So jealously does the law guard the lives 

 and persons of the people, that every time the physician writes a pre- 

 scription, or the surgeon makes an incision, he takes his purse, his 

 liberty, or, perhaps, his life in his hand. The risk is not all on the 

 part of the patient, despite a popular impression that the only pocket- 

 book likely to be depleted or the only life liable to be sacrificed is that 

 of the sick man. 



In undertaking the care of a patient the physician enters into legal 

 relations with him and becomes a party to a contract, which, although 

 not expressly set forth in writing, is yet, in the eye of the law, fixed 

 and certain, and one which subjects him, in case of a breach on his 

 part, to legal liabilities. He engages that he possesses that reasonable 

 degree of learning, skill, and experience which is ordinarily possessed 

 by the professors of the same art or science, and which is ordinarily 

 regarded by the community or by those conversant with that employ- 

 ment as necessary and sufficient to qualify him to engage in such 

 business. He contracts also to employ reasonable and ordinary care 

 and diligence in the exertion of his skill and application of his knowl- 

 edge to the matter in which he is employed.* 



It is not necessary, in order to sustain an action against him for 

 malpractice, that there should be proof of gross culpability on his 

 part. He is on the same footing, and subject to the same degree 

 of liability, as any other person who is engaged in the performance 

 of services requiring skill and care. Both are equally responsible 

 for a failure to exercise proper care, and for negligence in the dis- 

 charge of the duty imposed upon thera.f But extraordinary care is no 

 more contracted for than the possession of extraordinary skill. If the 

 physician has employed ordinary skill and care in the management 

 of his case, he is not responsible if success does not crown his efforts. 

 But, on the other hand, if he does not bring to the treatment of a 

 disease the ordinary amount of skill possessed by those in the same 

 * T. Foster, New Hampshire, 460. f ^5 New York, 15. 



