The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-15
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-ooMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
MALPRACTICE.


From tAs NJ p. Tribune.
Actions at law against medical men for
malpractice, especially when brought by heirs,
executors, or administrators, are of doubtful
validity. The patient and physician, as the
original parties to the contract, are in the
same implied position which buyer and seller
in market overt occupy; and there is no
reason why to their relation the rule of cG0edt
eT1Dt0r ahould not annlv, The sick man when
a good or a bad one, and the doctor can con-
tract for the employment of no more skill
than he possesses. If he is to be held for
every error of judgment, why may he not be
held for treating disease homeopathioally
when, in the opinion of the court and Jury,
he should have proceeded upon the system
commonly called allopathic. This would be
to put medical systems upon their trial; and
if we are to come to that, juries may be next
called upon to decide upon the comparative
merits of dozen different 'Bitters." Let
us look at case which has recently been de-
cided, and most righteously determined, in
the District Court in Philadelphia.
Thaddeus Stevens, in 1864, while serving
in the army, received wound in the thigh;
tmputation was performed above the knee,
and the patient was fitted upon the stump
with an artificial leg. After the operation an
aneurism formed below the joint of the thigh
bone, which was troublesome, and the opera
ton for it was performed by Dr. Gross,
assisted by several eminent surgeons. The
patient was taken home, was constantly at
tended, day and night, by one surgeon or
another, and was nursed by students from
the medical school. Secondary hemorrhage
set in, which was checked, but ultimately
the patient died. This action was brought
by his widow for the recovery of damages,
although it was in evidence that Professor
Gross was extremely unwilling to perform
the operation, and only did SO after
good deal of importantly on the part
of the deceased. After the case for the plain
tiff had been put it, the facts appearing as
substantially stated above, Lynd j. would not
permit the case to go to the jury, but directed
nonsuit. Thesdefendants (Dr. Gross's son
was included in the action) were anxious to
put in their own evidence, and take YER
dict, but the Court would not permit this,
being clearly of opinion that a case had not
been made out. A similar suit also comes
under our notice, occurring in New Hamp-
shire. The action was brought for alleged
malpractice in setting limb. At the first
trial the jury gave the plaintiff $2500 dam
ages; upon review smaller damages were
given, and the verdict set aside upon ex-
ceptions; and the case was then put on trial
for the third time.
Promising that of all quacks in the world
we hold the medical quack in the greatest alb
horrenoe, we must be permitted to say that
''malpractice' which is made the occasion of
so many suits against the poor doctors is as
uncertain and unsubstantal as possible. Sick
folk will die in spite of the most judicious
treatment that end having been appointed
for all men, and it is not, and cannot in the
nature of things be, part of the contract be-
tween the sick and the physician that the
death of the former shall render the latter
liable to pay damages. If such were the law
no sensible doctor would ever write another
prescription. He would know that q con-
siderable portion of his treatment must be in
the nature of an experiment; that with the
best intentions and knowledge carefully ac-
quired he may be misled in his diagnosis; that
in determining symptoms he may be misin-
formed; that he can never be sure, while
nurses are negligent and old wives oficious,
that his directions will be followed. Some
folly or prejudice or silly traditional notion,
some dosing of which he knows nothing, OIL
about which, if he inquiries, he is told dozen
lies, may frustrate all efforts and render inef-
fectual his honest care and skill The patien,
dies, and the unhappy doctor is at once, in
too many cases, regarded as bungler, an
ignoramus, and a murderer he is arraignet
by the bereaved; he is tried by gossips ant
found guilty by tea-table juries-and al
because God saw fit to make His children
mortal. Very few people die without leaving
behind them q number of mourners who are
perfectly sure that this syrup or that tincture
this sudoriic or that tonic, or the other laxa-
tive, If it had been properly and promptly
and persistently exhibited, would have
averted the calamity. OF course, the physician
is not always made defendant whenever h,
may lose a case; but he may be chartered and
gossipped and slandered and misrepresenteC
out of q neighborhood, and compelled tt
abandon practice acquired through years o
patient industry and painstaking. Some
clever young man will come to take hi
place. and to be, unless extremely fortunate
subjected to the same melancholy fate.
We would not be understood to say tina
there may not occasionally arise cases o
gross malpractice in which doctor may de
serve to pay roundly for his negligence or fo
his ignorance. blunderer who puts a pa
tient half dead with phthisis into a stean
box, having previously filled him with lobeli
and red pepper, should be made to pa
damages If he has any money, or to go to jai
if he has none. This il different case frou
that of an educated and conscientious practi
TONER, who, having done his best to postpon
that ceremonial, is tittle-tattled almost T.
his own death at the funeral of a patient wa
may have succumbed, after all, to some in
durable disease like old age or confrme
and neglected consumption. 1t should b
understood once for all that no medical schoo
can impart to it's neophytes the secret O
working miracles AS the poet says, ''Die W
may and die Ae must" a fact of which ever
human being is finally, however reluctantly
convinced, but which the doctor knows froI
the time when he is summoned to the tim
when ne retreats from an Intellectual struggl
with disease.
THE COMMUNISTS AT BAY.
From the N. y. Times.