Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1

by R. A. Witthaus; Tracy C. Becker

PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS.

Confidential communications between physician and patient not infrequently may relate to matters that are the subjects of inquiry before judicial tribunals. When these communications are by law excluded from disclosure in evidence, they are termed privileged communications. When such a disclosure is forbidden it is upon grounds of public policy,[207] “because greater mischiefs would probably result from requiring or permitting its admission, than from wholly rejecting it.”