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EDITORIAL. 
understand  their  cases,  and  be  able  to  elicit  and  exhibit  the  testimony  they 
involve,  so  that  justice  shall  not  suffer  so  monstrously  as  has  frequently 
been  the  case  by  the  inability  of  the  legal  advisers  to  satisfy  the  jury  of 
the  real  nature  of  the  wound  or  disease,  and  the  true  scope  of  the  power 
of  the  surgeon  and  physician  in  effecting  cures.  Juries  are  too  apt  to 
lean  in  favor  of  the  plaintiff — under  a  false  idea  of  the  powers  of  medicine, 
and  an  uncharitable  view  of  the  endless  difficulties  which  beset  the  prac- 
titioner, firstly  in  diagnosis;  secondly  in  judgment  of  treatment,  and  lastly, 
in  the  want  of  compliance  with  the  directions  of  the  physician  by  the  at- 
tendents  or  the  patients  themselves.  The  frequency  of  cases  requiring 
medical  and  chemical  testimony  arising  out  of  suits  for  malpractice  or 
criminal  poisoning,  suggests  the  importance  of  more  special  instruction 
and  study  in  this  branch  of  medical  knowledge  than  is  usually  accorded 
either  in  medical  schools  or  by  medical  men  in  their  general  reading. 
Chapter  xii.,  on  the  responsibilities  of  Druggists,  although  but  brief, 
contains  several  suggestions  relative  to  the  legal  responsibility  of  apothe- 
caries and  druggists  which  should  be  familiar  to  these  classes. 
"  It  is  a  well  established  principle  of  law,  that  a  vender  of  provisions 
for  domestic  use  is  bound  to  know  that  they  are  sound  and  wholesome,  at 
Ms  peril.  It  is  an  equally  elementary  principle,  that  in  contracts  for  the 
sale  of  provisions,  the  party,  by  implication,  who  sells  them,  undertakes 
to  guarantee  that  they  are  sound  and  wholesome." 
Blackstone  also  says:  "Injuries  effecting  a  man's  health,  or  where, 
by  any  unwholesome  practices  of  another,  a  man  sustains  any  apparent 
damage  in  his  vigor  or  constitution,  as  by  selling  him  bad  provisions  or 
wine  ;  by  the  exercise  of  a  noisome  trade,  or  by  the  neglect  or  unskilful 
management  of  a  physician,  surgeon,  or  apothecary,  these  are  wrongs  or 
injuries  unaccompanied  by  force,  for  which  there  is  a  remedy  in  damages, 
by  a  special  action  on  the  case." 
"  These  principles  apply  equally  to  druggists,  physicians,  and  chemists, 
who  compound  medicines,  as  to  those  who  sell  bread  meat  and  wines,  etc. 
More  care  should  be  exercised  by  those  who  mix  poisons  for  internal  use, 
than  is  needed  by  those  who  sell  fruit,  food  and  the  like.  Bad  wines,  pro- 
visions, fruit  and  meat,  can  usually  be  at  once  detected  by  the  senses  ; 
while  the  character  of  medical  substances  and  compounds  are  only  dis- 
covered by  the  careful  analysis  of  an  experienced  chemist." 
" A  druggist,  or  one  who  prepares  medicines,  is  held  to  a  strict  accounta- 
bility in  law,  for  any  mistake  he  may  make  in  compounding  medicines. 
He  must  be  exact  in  preparing  those  powerful  medicines  of  which  every 
small  dose  may  produce  fatal  consequences.  If  an  apprentice  of  an  apothe- 
cary is  guilty  of  negligence,  he  is  guilty  of  manslaughter,  if  fatal  conse- 
quences follow."  When,  however,  instead  of  death,  only  damage  to  health 
results,  then  a  civil  action  for  damages  against  the  employer  for  the  act  of 
his  apprentice  may  be  had. 
11  So,  where  a  chemist  makes  a  mistake  when  he  is  labelling  medicines 
