Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/382

 Doctors versus Law. he can hold his tongue and does not try to tell all he knows or does not know, or is doing or is not doing, his silence, his nods, his grunts, his head shakings may pose as wisdom, and pass coin in the feeding of bread pills to hypochondriacs, of morphia to those with pain, of quinine to those with colds, and of whiskey to the weak and debili tated. When none of these remedies fit the subject and the patient does not survive of course it is the inevitable. When Darwin announced to the world the law of nature of the survival of the fittest, he may or may not have conceived an exception to the rule, namely, a community presided over by such a healer as indicated, where in course of time necessarily the fittest would die, leaving a commune result of morphine wrecks, malaria suspects-, topers and hypo chondriacs. The physician's business may be said to be one largely of guessing. There is some thing fascinating about a game of chance to mortals. The passion rules many a life. While those outside the medical profession must play the games on black or red spaces, or on the throw of a die, or on the turn of a card, yet the great game is alone played by the healer. He has human pawns, rooks, knights, castles, kings and queens. There is much skill and science in the game. At all times there is the hazard of a human life by any movement made upon the board. The physician moves, some for the sake of the fee, and thereby loses out of his soul the spirit of the game, while the true healer moves for sake of game, for the chance of a human life, for a call of "check-mate" against his opponent Death. The physician enjoys another unique dis tinction. He comes so close to the com munity actually and relatively that he knows the inhabitants better than they know them selves, knows their unsung virtues and their hidden sins, yea even the familiar outlines of the skeletons in the closets. Think for a moment what this knowledge must be, and then consider what is done with it. It is all

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hidden in the breast of the healer, he must bear the burden alone. He can not com municate it to others, that is if he proposes to continue the practice in the same com munity. He can not even tell his wife. He simply bears the burden until it is buried where all other secrets are forever hidden. Along with these apparent distinctions, socially, professionally and otherwise, there are certain responsibilities the physician must shoulder and be prepared to face at any time. He must be at the beck and call of humanity and he must perform the selfimposed duties of his profession in such a manner as not to become classified at some inopportune moment as a criminal. It is possible for a moment's recklessness or care lessness with human life to develop a charge of manslaughter and a punishment therefor. England is more strict in holding the physician to account than is this land of freedom. Here greater latitude for guessing seems to be allowed. Or it may be in our youth we have not valued life as the older country has. However the drift of all the authorities seems to be towards greater strictness with the physician. In the mother country a physician or surgeon may by his negligence in causing the death of a patient render himself liable to be punished for manslaughter, or if the injury fall short of death he may be punished for a misde meanor. It is not every kind of negligence, however, that is going to bring about this result. If there is an honest exercise of the best skill to cure, there is no criminal liabil ity. The authorities are a unit on the proposition that the negligence or inatten tion must be of the grossest kind. It is this kind of negligence alone that may make of the healer a criminal. This gross negligence may be of two kinds. It may be a sin of omission or one of commission. The first may be illustrated by a case where a physician went hunting and neglected his patient. Or he may have stayed in the game too long and, while waiting for the turn of a card, the patient may have died