Daily Kennebec journal., 1879-01-30

paid between 81, 900 and s., 200, and the
county as much more to defend the self-evi-
dent propositions that the surgeon can't sever
tendon without cutting the sheath and spill
ing blood, that there must be evidence of
cut to allege damages, that the surgeon can't
cut out two inches of flesh without leaving
two inch hole which must measure more than
seven-eights of an inch in photograph pen
ciled by the light of heaven, thereby proving
a blackmail job instead of a hole.
Last summer collected the statistics of
malpractice suits in this State for the Maine
Medical Association, which were afterwards
printed in pamphlet form for distribution.
This society, embracing all the leading sur
geons in the State startled by the figures, re-
solved with one accord, that the practice of
surgery was dangerous under the present law,
and chose a committee to apply to the next
legislature for change of the law. With
this object in view, petitions are being extern
sively circulated through the State. This
pamphlet has been extensively called for
through the Middle and Western States the
physicians being thoroughly aroused to the
necessity of protection.
showed in my pamphlet that seventy sur
geons had been prosecuted in this State with
in my knowledge for $500, 900, and only nine
convicted in sums aggragating $4,000, every
cent of which was used up in litigation. The
sixty-one surgeons who were not convicted,
paid out s43, 900 to defend their skill. All but
eight of the plaintiffs never paid the doctor
for his services, were not able to pay taxable
costs and became hopelessly involved by
judgments for costs.
Surgery is not profitable in the smaller
towns and cities, as the rich go to the metrop-
oils, and most of it occurs among the labor
ing class and mechanics, who are impover-
ished bv the very injuries and morbid growths
which the surgeon is called upon to treat.
As evidence Of this have taken from my
books, chronologically, an average number of
difficult and prevailing surgical operations,
requiring skill and ready talent viz. Six
amputations of the thigh, leg and arm, six
fractures of the same and six dissections of
cancerous tumOrs and breasts, making
eighteen cases in all. find that made 237
visits, travelled 764 miles, and collected S2ss.-
80 for my services. All resulted favorably
except one amputation in person who died
from the shock of the accident. ! earned 23
cents mile for my services. My time and
the use of my horse and carriage paid me
81. so per day, for three months, the time ac-
tually consumed with these surgical cases !;
barely master mechanics wages.
Fractures, dislocatiOns, and gaping wounds
WIN pc PtfIttHy
stored by either art or nature. The results
will be imperfect, some times appreciably so.
There will be shortening and immobility of
limbs and joints, imperfect healing, and con-
traction of tendons and scars, causing defect
in form and function, which the surgeon can't
prevent, but which the vicious lawyer and
worthless patient can turn to the injury of the
surgeon who has to defend himself at his own
expense. In the eighteen cases cited, from
my past experience, incurred the risk of
prosecutions for $3.50, 900 and to pay out Sls,-
900 in lawyers fees and costs, to earn S28s. 80,
thereby taking the chances of having to pay
out sixty times as much as received for sue
cessful surgery on the poor.
There is not one cent of money in iegiti
mate surgical operations. Not one surgeon
in Penobscot valley has made anything from
surgery for the last half century. Its pres
tige is getting to be worth nothing in compar-
ison to its risks. The two most eminent sur
geons in Eastern Maine, who enjoyed re-
spectively fifty and sixty years of uninter-
rupted practice, aside from the appreciations
of war times, died comparatively poor. One
on his friends to relieve mortgage
on his homestead the other, after twenty
years Of practice, settled grocer's bill by
pledging his perpetual service to the daughter,
once rode one hundred and forty miles in
forty-eight hours, made a new pupil for
blind woman, operated on a cataract for
another, restored sight to both, operated on a
third patient for stone in the bladder, received
only $50, because they were poor, and lost
horse worth $500 from fatigue and exposure.
Let any mathematician compute the profits
and risks and determine the margin for pros
ecnting attorneys who offer to settle malprac-
tice law suits for $500, the amount of their
fees and costs, and give the clients the go by.
Let jurists decide the benefit Of a law which
imperils the person and property of the sur
geon, increases the price and hazard of sur
gerry, deprives the poor of its benefits in hours
Of affection, has never profited the poor one
cent in the aggregate, does not provide for
the payment of its judgments of costs and
forces the innocent surgeon to settle rather
than be ruined by costly trials in vindication
of his skill One bad lawyer in each county,
under the present law, can strike terror and
dismay into whole army Of skilful and de-
fenceless surgeons.
Technically the power is invested in the
judge, to hear complaints for damages and to
issue writs of arres: anu attachment; but the
law has become corrupted in cases Of tort, so
that any person without regard to moral or
legal qualifications, provided he is a member
Of the bar, can exercise the dangerous and
arbitrary power Of arrest or the attachment
of the property of innocent persons and hold
them for trial at their own expense.
The surgeon asks in defence of himself, his
profession and the people, that either the
larger be deprived by Legislation of the
special po1er to arrest, imprison or attach
the property of the surgeon unless he be
made responsible for the damage done where
the suit fails, or that the plaintiff, in suits for
malpractice, shall give bond to pay TAXABLE
costs If he fails to maintain his action. He
asks that the lawyer shall be denied the
special legislative authority to pursue the
doctor with frivolous and contingent suits at
his expense with equal authority to return the
compliment SO provided that the surgeon can
make 1t equally burdensome.
Ii lawyers can arrest, attach the property
of, and imprison defenseless surgeons, drag
them into the halls of justice, and shower
them with invectiyes and abuse, can threaten
medical witnesses, can introduce female wit
nesses INTO the jury room, can send out run
ners to hunt up new cases of malpractice, can
communicate with jurors at hotels and can
write letters to satisfy jurors in advance of
the ''outrages committed by surgeons" with
impunity, better that the Court House should
be closed than cause the innocent to suffer
| and make "A mere tuoek arv of sust;ca in, tL;a