Holtzman v. Hoy, 118 Ill. 534, 8 N. E. 832. Unlike the great body of personal service contracts, which hold the parties to a full execution of them according to their terms, the employment of a physician by or on behalf of a patient does not obligate the physician to perfect a cure of, or to even remedy, the ills of which the patient complains, unless, of course, the physician expressly contracts that a cure shall be effected. The underlying reason that prompts a patient to employ a certain physician is that the patient believes that the physician he employs is the one whose judgment, experience and skill will produce the desired results more certainly than would be true of any other, and if his employment is the result of such a belief on the part of the patient, and the physician accepts the employment, still he does not adopt or ratify the opinion of the patient by the act of accepting and proceeding under such employment, but merely signifies that it is his intention to endeavor to meet the expectations of the patient in that regard. By accepting the employment to treat a patient for the ills that beset him, the physician does not (unless by express agreement) guarantee a cure, and does not insure the correctness of his diagnosis, nor the effect of his remedies upon the patient, nor even that he will be able to effectually bring any relief to the patient. Bonnett v. Foote, 47 Colo. 282, 28 L. R. A. (ns)} 136. Staloch v. Holm, 100 Minn. 276, 111 N. W. 264. Du Bois v. Duder, 130 N. Y. 325, 27 A. S. R. 529. Ronn v. Twitchell, 82 Vt. 79, 20 L. R. A. (ns) 1030. If a physician expressly agrees to effect a cure, and he fails to de that which he has agreed to do, he would be liable for breach of contract by failure to perform. Fisk v. Townsend, 7 Yerg (Tenn.) 146. Smith v. Hyde 19 Vi. 54. Howard v. Grover, 28 Me. 97, 48 Am. Dec. 478. Pike v. Honsinger, 155 N. Y. 201, 49 N. E. 760. The physician having engaged to treat a patient is under an obligation to continue in the case until such time as his services are dispensed with by the patient or after the physician has given advance notice of his intention to discontinue his service to the patient, Dale v. Donaldson Lumber Co., 48 Ark. 188, 3 A. S. R. 224. Lawson v. Conway, 37 W. Va. 159, 18 L. R. A. 627 but a physician is under no legal obligation to accept employment to treat a case against his will, or when his own judgment prompts him to refuse, and even if it is an emergency case and no other physician is available, Hurley v Eddingfield, 156 Ind. 416, 53 L. R. A. 135. Having engaged to treat a patient and after rendering service to the patient, the physician is entitled to be paid for his services so rendered such remuneration as the services were reasonably worth, in the absence of an express contract as to the compensation to be paid, or, when under express agreement, the fee agreed upon. Ely v. Wilbur, 49 N. J. L. 685, 10 Atl. 358. Peck v. Martin, 17 Ind. 115. Henderson v. Hall, 87 Arl. 1, 112, S. W. 171. Cotman vs. Wisdom, 83 Ark. 601, 119 A. S. R. 157. This right to compensation does not necessarily rest upon the existence of a contract between the parties, for, in the absence of any possible agreement in fact, the law will imply an agreement to pay what the service was reasonably worth to the patient. Meyer v. Supreme Lodge K. P., 178 N. Y. 63, 70 N. E. 111. Cotman v. Wisdom, 83 Ark. 601, 119 A. S. R. 157. Garry v. Stadler, 67 Wis. 512, 30 N. W. 787. Where a physician has contracted to provide a stated amount of service, or a particular kind of service, and he furnishes a greater quantity or a different class of service than as contracted, he may rightfully demand and receive additional compensation for such additional service. Spearman vs. Texarkana, 58 Ark. 348, 24 S. W. 883. But in a case where a person who is under no legal obligation to provide medical service for another requests a physician to furnish medical service to such other, it is held that the fact that the physician did render the service does not raise an implied promise that payment for the service would be made by the person requesting the service or by the one to whom the service was rendered by the physician, McQuire v. Hughes, 207 N. Y. 516, 101 N. E. 460. Spelman v. Gold Coin Min. Co., 26 Mont. 76, 66 Pac. 597 no doubt upon the theory that it is the interest of the public to encourage persons who summon medical aid for those who are sick and unable to take care of themselves. Clark v. Waterman, 7 Vt. 76, 29 Am. Dec. 150. Williams v. Brickell, 37 Miss. 682, 75 Am. Dec. 88 Medical service rendered to one person at the request of another often raises the question of an implied contract between the person requesting the service and the physician rendering it, as to the matter of compensation to the physician from the person requesting it, for the service rendered, and the decision of the question of the liability of the person requesting the service for payment for it turns upon the facts of each case in the light of the general principles of contracts, Clark v. Aterman, 7 Vt. 76, 29 Am. Dec. 150. McGuire v. Huges, 207 N. Y. 516, 101 N. E. 460. The amount of compensation that physicians may rightfully charge is not defined by law, and depends upon their value in any given case, and physicians services have come to be much akin to other commodities in that respect. The law of supply and demand applies with peculiar force in the realm of medicine and surgery, and commercialism has so taken hold upon the profession that it has almost assumed the attitude and aspect of a trade in which mechanical skill predominates instead of a profession wherein, as in earlier years, men strove for perfection of efficiency within truly ethical limits. True, the law provides that the physician shall rightfully demand as compensation a sum equal to the reasonable worth of his services, rut it has been said that the financial condition of the patient cannot be the basis of the determination of the value of services rendered by a physician to a patient, Morrissett v. Wood, 123, Ala. 384, 82 A. S. R. 127. Morrell v. Lawrence, 203 Mo. 363, 101 S. W. 571 and that the reasonable worth of such services should be determined irrespective of the wealth of the patient. Cotman v. Wisdom, 83 Ark. 601, 119 A. S. R. 157. Morrell v. Lawrence, 203 Mo. 363, 101 S. W. 571. It may be difficult to prove that life and good health is of greater value to one person than to another, but it is the easiest thing in the world to show that some men are better able than are others to pay for relief from their ills, or to renew their youth by recently discovered methods; although by the employment of a very lately exploited method of effecting cures for every bodily ill, it would seem that the rich and the poor stand upon an equal footing, since it does not cost the poor man any larger sum of money to "kid himself" than it does the rich man, and in every way and every day the rich man and the poor man may joke with themselves as much and as often as they wish, free of charge. The physician has the same perfect right to place an estimate of value upon his services that the farmer and the manufacturer has to declare the price at which their products shall be marketed, and an equal right to secure the highest price possible, and the physician may render service gratuitously to some and charge others an extreme price with better grace than can any other person, since the appeal to him comes from both Dives and Lazarus, and he may be said to be charitable when he acts upon the truth of the teaching that what is Caesar's should be rendered unto Caesar, and that there is faith, hope, and charity, and of which three the greatest is charity. The laws holds that if a physician is charged with demanding greater compensation from some persons than from others for like services, he may justify his action by showing that the larger fees were demanded of the financially strong members of the community to whom such fees were but the reasonable worth of the service rendered, and that the lesser fees were asked from poor men to whom, because of their poverty, the smaller fee was equal to the greater, Morrell v. Lawrence, 203, Mo. 363, 101, S. W. 571. The poor we have with us always, and from none more than from the physician can the poor receive that which will make their stay upon earth tolerable. To those who put men and manhood above all else, it is gratifying to know that within the medical profession there are physicians, surgeons, osteopaths, chiropractors, and other healers, whose love of their profession and regard for their fellowmen lead them to assume every risk to themselves and make every-and even the supreme— sacrifice in the interest of humanity, and without a thought of tangible reward. INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM IN GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONING By A. B. Reading of Auburn, California. It is how an organ of the human body functions in the philosophy of life, in the living, that is highly important and engages the special and particular attention of the physician in the treatment of individual cases; and perhaps no very great amount of scientific knowledge of biology or evolution or the cell theory and chemical changes is requisite. Such physician's immediate duty in his profession is to discover the cause of the trouble to the human organism, whatever its origin, evolution or de velopment, in its present existing condition. And, logically, it is, therefore, the simpler proposition in his practice to proceed upon accepted theory as a diagnostician "in the art or act of recog nizing the presence of disease from its signs or symptoms and deciding as to its character." It is no less important in the social organism, in its broad acceptation and adaptation to governmental functioning, that the statesman also recognize his immediate duty in his profession to discover the cause of trouble to the social organism, whatever its origin, evolution or development, in its present existing condition. If he wants to transcend his authority as a representative or agent to an accepted and accredited government of "We, the People," as long constituted, that is his privilege by lawful method of endeavor in bringing about a different polity or structure of government; but he must then recognize himself as acting in the capacity of a revolutionist. It seems strange to the writer that a fundamental truth so simple and so universally accepted in the abstract as a truism or self-evident proposition, in the concrete is denounced, frowned upon, sought to be kept in the background and wholly disregarded as a primal force in the essence of being, -that simple element in last analysis and final synthesis, the inescapable individual, or that type of being that is a factorial substantiality in human existence in its proscriptive finiteness of quality, quantity, state and condition of the mind or soul in all his relations and recognized as individualism, the quality of being individual. Let us tell the truth about ourselves and shame the devil, confess error to avoid further and greater error, by acknowledging the cause of the trouble in our body politic in its governmental functioning. We are not functioning rightly in our legislative and political policies because we stultify our consciousness of our limitations. We are ignoring the creed of individualism, and are untrue to the philosophy of life, in the living, in the fortuitous, futile hope or belief that we are or can be in politics, in governmental functioning, something more or different than the quality of being individual. So much in brief, broad generalization to revive, clarify and strengthen |