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 
was 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.*4 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 
Towa 320, 55 N. W. 511. 
