If the goods are good, let them be sold for what they really are; and if the old-fashioned butter is higher priced, let those of us who like pay the difference for our fastidiousness. The manufacturers of the new butter should expend their efforts and their money in perfecting their process, so as to give an innocent and useful food, and in proving that it is so, instead of opposing the action of the Board of Health. The verdict of the health authorities should be regarded as final by every individual of the public, and until the new article is pronounced at least harmless, no one should think of using or handling it any more than they would measly pork or spoilt fish.
MEDICAL DEFENCE ASSOCIATION.
We have selected a few recent cases of suits for malpractice with the object of calling the attention of physicians to the importance of adopting some plan looking toward the suppression of quackery and the protection of professional rights when assailed by hostile influences.
“In April, 1884, Dr. Graves of Petaluma, California, was called to see Mrs. Winters, the wife of a laborer whose family he had attended gratuitously for nearly sixteen years. He found that the woman, who was fifty-eight years of age, had fallen from a height and injured her ankle. The limb was very much swollen, so as to interfere with examination, but no crepitus could be elicited, neither was there any displacement, or shortening; and as the swelling continued, the limb was placed in position and wrapped loosely in cloth saturated with anodyne lotions. The patient, we are told, received every attention from Dr. Graves, but there was left finally some stiffening of the joint and a very slight inversion of the foot. No complaints were made until a new doctor arrived in the town, who told the patient the limb had been badly treated and advised her to sue for malpractice. The case was examined by ten of the chief surgeons in the State, including Drs. Lane, McLean, Morse and Dennis, all of whom said that there might have been a sprain or an incomplete fracture of the external malleolus, but that the ends of the bones were in perfect apposition and never had been separated, and that the stiffening was probably due to inflammatory adhesions. Two other doctors, one of whom being he who advised the suit, testified that there was shortening of the limb, and that the lower fragment of the tibia had been driven up and behind the fibula. One of these would-be surgeons, Dr. Wells, is nearly eighty years of age, and had not read a work on surgery for thirty years; the other, Dr. Ivancovich, confessed he had no special experience in surgery. Their incompetence may be judged from the way they measured the patient's limb in court. This was done by taking a carpenter's rigid rectangular rule, and measuring the limb as she maintained the upright position. The result was that in the opinion of nine jurymen the testimony of two unknown, inexperienced general practitioners out-weighed that of ten specialists in surgery, all of whom possess a national reputation, so that a verdict was returned in favor of the plaintiff, awarding her eight thousand dollars damages.”
“Some three years ago Dr. Purdy, a well-known and esteemed physician, gave notice to the health department of New York City, in accordance with a regulation of the sanitary code which makes it the duty of physicians to notify this department of cases of infectious diseases, that in his opinion a young woman who was under his treatment was suffering with smallpox. The department sent one of its medical officers to investigate the case. The diagnosis made by Dr. Purdy was then confirmed and by the authority of the board of health the patient was transferred to the smallpox hospital. After a day or two the patient was discharged. This patient immediately brought suit against Dr. Purdy for $10,000 damages, on the ground of injury to her business and of the false diagnosis upon the part of her medical attendance. The jury which tried this case gave a verdict of $500 against the defendant. The singular injustice of this verdict resides in the fact that damages should have been brought against Dr. Purdy, when, in point of fact, the injury to the plaintiff was inflicted by the health department, which not only affirmed the diagnosis of the attending physician, but caused the removal of the patient to be made to the smallpox hospital. It appears that Dr. Purdy's sole error in the case was in informing the health authorities of the possible existence of smallpox. In the discharge of a duty imposed upon him by a city ordinance he has been subjected to the expense and annoyance of a legal case, and has been mulcted by a jury to the extent of $500.”
“Another suit of a blackmailing character has been brought against Dr. E. Williams and partners of Cincinnati, O. According to the Cincinnati Medical News, the charge was that they had permitted a small scale of iron, that had entered the eye of a boy, to remain, by which he eventually became blind—the sound eye becoming affected through sympathy with the injured one and losing the power of vision. It was proven on trial that the boy had visited the office of Dr. Williams but twice, and then had ceased calling because he was informed that, to preserve the sound eye and be saved from blindness, he must consent to have the eye that had been destroyed removed from its socket, to which his parents would not consent. For several months after declining the services of Dr. Williams and associates, he spent his time in going the rounds of the specialists of diseases of the eye, putting his case in charge, at different times, of both regular and homœopathic physicians. Every ophthalmologist by whom he was treated informed him that the only way by which he could avoid becoming blind was to have the injured eye removed. Finally, after losing sight in both eyes, he brought suit. The medical testimony, we are told, was uniformly in favor of Dr. Williams, but the jury disagreed.”
“The Boston correspondent of The Northwestern Lancet writes: 'Dr. A., a reputable practitioner living in a New England city, attended Mr. B. for a fractured thigh. The case did well, and the patient recovered without deformity. No measurements were recorded by the attending surgeon, but he was able to swear that the result was to him perfectly satisfactory. A year or two later the patient entered suit against Dr. A. for malpractice, and exhibited a leg considerably shortened and deformed. A jury at once found a verdict for the plaintiff, and awarded damages in some six or seven thousand dollars, a sum which seriously crippled the physician. He devoted his energies thereafter to discovering what he believed to be a fraud, and finally obtained evidence that B. had, subsequently to his recovery under A.'s attendance, again fractured the same thigh while in the Adirondack wilderness, and had, on that occasion, had no surgical attendance whatever. The physician was able to recover his money, but was at the expense of his detectives' and lawyers' fees, to say nothing of years of anxiety and of damage to his professional reputation.'”
The case of Drs. Reed and Ford of Norwalk, Ohio, will be remembered by many Cleveland physicians. Miss Pierce, a comely young lady, sustained a Colles fracture, and was attended by Drs. Reed and Ford. Suit was brought twice in county court and dismissed because plaintiff did not desire to try the case. A few days before the case was outlawed, suit was brought in the United States Court at Cleveland. Many physicians were called on both sides, and the testimony of all the physicians, with probably one exception, was that the treatment was good and the result better than is usual with such fractures. Flexion extension, pronation and supination were perfect. She had, however, the power, when the arm was midway between pronation and supination, of bending the wrist toward the radius, and by making the head of the ulna prominent she was able to make an apparent deformity. Her case, then, was her ability to make an apparent deformity by twisting her wrist. (She could do the same with the unfractured wrist.) She was a good-looking woman, and therefore entitled to sympathy. She followed up the case persistently for six years, therefore there must be some merit in the case. The doctors all testified against her, so there was a combination of the doctors which must not be countenanced. Upon this strong case twelve intelligent jurors awarded thirteen hundred dollars damages. The judge subsequently reduced this to five hundred. Is it any wonder, when such things can be done in the State of Ohio, in the name of justice, that physicians like old Dr. Kirtland refused to attend cases of fracture under any circumstances? or that it is not unusual to hear surgeons of recognized ability say they dare not possess property for fear of suits for damages?
Frequently physicians are accused of malpractice, and rather than undergo the expense and inconvenience of a suit they will submit to an extortion of money; or if a suit is lost in court through prejudice, unjust decisions, inability to secure good council or other unavoidable cause, rather than undertake to carry the case to a higher court, the physician will pay the damages, and thus establish a precedent which renders every physician under similar circumstances liable to a suit for damages. It is always observed whenever a large amount of damages is collected from a physician, numerous other suits on all sorts of cases are commenced. Such a condition of affairs ought not to exist. Physicians can not expect legislators to look after their interests until their grievances are made known. The testimony of physicians as individuals will not carry enough weight to accomplish anything. Moves have been made in this direction through the County and State societies and failed first, because the members of the societies are divided among themselves, second, because they represent only a fractional portion of the profession. Out of the thousands of physicians practicing in Ohio there are only about seven hundred members of the State society.
We believe the object of county, state and national medical societies are intended for purely scientific work, and the less of medical politics brought into them the better. But when there is some definite end to be accomplished, some gross wrong to be righted, some persecuted physician defended, there ought to be some organization including physicians of all schools, independent of the medical societies as now organized. When a physician is sued for damages, if his case is worthy of being defended, the entire profession ought to lend him their moral as well as financial support, and this could be rendered in no way better than by means of some organization similar to the Medical Defense Association of England.