Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/388

 Doctor versus Law. upon the plaintiff's thigh. The first was un objectionable. The ground of complaint was to the second one, whether there was error in not cutting off the limb nearer the body, and want of skill and care in the mode of execution. It was not shown that the plain tiff sustained any material injury from the mere mode of execution, although it did not accord with the most correct and careful practice. As soon as the second amputation took place it was apparent that the bone was infected above the place of amputation. The plaintiff could not then bear another opera tion. The caries continued to increase in virulence, until the whole of the thigh bone was removed from its socket by another surgeon. The alleged fault of the defendant consisted in an error of judgment in not re moving more of the diseased limb. The whole bone seemed to be diseased and hence it was of little importance in one sense, how much or how little was removed. It was the inevitable fate of the plaintiff to be a cripple for life without any agency of the defendant. Yet his want or error of judgment pro tracted the suffering of the plaintiff and caused an increase of expenses and loss of time for which the defendant was held liable. When the lack of skill and negligence of physicians and surgeons are to be measured in damages by courts and juries, light pun ishments are the rule. An unusual verdict may be said to be one running into the

353

thousands, while a verdict in the hundreds is more frequently what one may expect to find. The courts have said that the practice of surgery and medicine is indispensable to the community, and while damages should be paid for negligence and carelessness, sur geons and physicians should not be deterred from the pursuit of their profession by in temperate and extravagant verdicts. If such a condition should ever come to pass that they should be deterred, one might be a long time sick when illness overtakes him, or a short time sick minus recovery. Instead of the mortality of certain dis eases and operations decreasing under the advanced methods of the last genera tion forty, fifty, and even one hundred per cent, there would be a return to the mortality of the dark ages, when the barber with his sign of a striped pole was the blood letter, chief healer or deliverer from the maladies flesh is heir to. Such, however, will never be the case, for the evolution is upward and forward, the world is becoming a healthier place to live in. Law will keep pace with the needs of those who are making it a better and more wholesome dwelling place. This ought to be some consolation, notwithstanding certain doctrines, which are neither medical nor legal, that to enjoy per fect health vou have to lose your life.