82 ESSENTIALS OF VETERINARY LAW 



tract, and that the death of the practitioner prac- 

 tically removes the opportunity for learning the 

 essential facts from the practitioner's standpoint. 

 In one case action was brought several years after 

 the accident, in which the patient was thrown out 

 of a fast moving vehicle around a telegraph post. 

 She received numerous fractures of different parts 

 of the body, and for a few days the surgeon did 

 not expect to save her life. The case was one of 

 very great difficulty, and was cared for in the 

 country some distance from competent assistance. 

 After the death of the surgeon and his wife suit 

 w^as begun against his estate. There was no one 

 living who was a competent witness in behalf of 

 the estate as to facts. Even the consultant sur- 

 geon had died. Though the attending surgeon 

 had given, in the presence of the writer, an ac- 

 count of the early progress of the case, this evi- 

 dence was worthless in court. Plainly, the case 

 was one in which to permit the suit to be con- 

 ducted would be to take advantage of the help- 

 lessness of the surgeon's children, after he had 

 served the patient most faithfully and intelli- 

 gently. 



54. Cases of Malpractice. In the absence of a 

 formal contract the law implies a promise to com- 

 pensate; and hence in such a case, the physician 

 or surgeon must exercise ordinary skill in render- 

 ing his services.-^^ Where a physician, by a slip 

 of the pen, makes a mistake in writing a prescrip- 

 tion, as the result of which the patient dies, the 

 fact that the druggist who filled the prescription 



34 Peck V. Hutchinson, 88 

 Iowa 320, 55 N. W. 511. 



