We cannot content ourselves with saying that others do it, or that others under the same circumstances would do the same thing. We have the power to suppress this evil thing that has grown up amongst us and spread to other regions, and courage to do it should not be wanting in the sons of men who followed Lee and Jackson, and who said with Yancey: "To do one's duty is man's chief aim in life. Better far to end our days by an act of duty,-life's aims fulfilled, than to prolong them for yearsyears filled with the corroding remembrance that we had tamely yielded to our ease and our fears that noble heritage that was transmitted to us through toil, suffering, battle and victory, with the condition that we likewise transmit it unimpaired to our posterity." This is and must forever be "A government of laws and not of men." It is by the adherence to this principle that we may continue to be an example to the men of every race and every creed in every clime and lead them to the "blessings of liberty, regulated by law." A SHREWD LAWYER This story is related about Horace Binney, an able Philadelphia lawyer, long since deceased. An employee of a corporation that retained Binney as its attorney, having some difficulty with relatives over the estate of his father, was directed by the president of the corporation to consult with Binney. The employee duly went to see Binney and afterwards reported to the president that Binney did not seem to understand anything he, the clerk, had tried to tell him, and the clerk expressed surprise that the firm should retain so obtuse a lawyer. "Did you," queried the president of the corporation, with a smile, offer Mr. Binney a retainer before you stated your case?" "I did not." And "Well, you get $50 from the cashier and go see him this afternoon. before you state your case put the $50 down in front of him and say it is a retainer." The next day the president on meeting the clerk inquired if he had again seen Binney. "Yes," replied the clerk, "and, say, he's about the shrewdest lawyer I ever heard of. Why, I put the $50 on his desk and said, Mr. Binney I want to consult with you. My father died and made a will-. 'No, he didn't,' said Mr. Binney. And I said, Oh you know all about my case. And he said, 'No I don't; but a man can't die and make a will. He must have made his will, if he made one, and then have died, if he's dead.' I tell you he's a sharp lawyer." RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES OF CHIROPRACTORS By Charles A. Enslow of the Janesville, Wisconsin, Bar. There has been a great deal of consideration given to the ethics of the several so-called learned professions within the present generation, and the medical fraternity has been the subject of especial attention, probably because of the numerous new schools or systems of treatment and healing of human ills that have been presented by their adherents for public approval and adoption, and because of the manner in which it was sought to establish them and to gain public endorsement of the methods employed by the prac titioners of the several schools in the application of the peculiar principles advocated by their different systems in the handling of the patients or subjects who sought to obtain relief from their ill at their hands. Like many other words and terms used by medical men to confuse and confound the proletaire, the word “ethics" is merely a camouflage, and one which fails even to cast a shadow over what is intended to be hidden from the gawk; and to the ordinarily intelligent man or woman "ethics" means nothing more nor less than what is known as "morals" to the common people. In all of the learned professions there will be found a great majority of the members alive and quick to meet the call of the highest ethical requirements, both in their relation to one another and to the public, under every condition, and in no profession will this be found more so than in the medical profession. While the law-makers have observed and marked a difference between the several systems of healing, and have enacted laws in contemplation of that difference, the fact remains that all of the laws enacted hold the members of the several schools of systems to compliance with a long acquiesced in and uniform rule of right, in their relation to the public, and reaffirm the established principles of square dealing among men in all stations of life when applied to their practice, even to the extent of including veterinarians with physicians, surgeons, osteopaths, chiropractors, and other healers who specialize in their practice, so that, therefore, when the word healer, or the term medical men, is found herein, it will be understood as not distinguishing any class, but as covering the members of all schools and systems. George vs. Shannon, 92 Kans. 801, 95 Pac. 967. Combs vs. King, 107 Me. 376, 78 Atl. 468. Frisk vs. Cannon, 110 Minn. 438, 126 N. W. 67. Sauer vs. Smits, 49 Wash. 557, 95 Pac. 907. Connors vs. Winton, 8 Ind. 315, 65 Am. Dec. 761. In no other so much as in healing is the relationship, of the practitioner and patient or patron so close and so confidential, nor in any other profession does the practitioner have opportunity to exercise a greater influence. for the practitioner holds himself out as one who is able to determine the cause of a disease and to apply the proper treatment to remedy the ill condition, and when a patient engages the service of the healer it is with the intent to comply with the instructions given him by the healer, fully and in all events. This complete surrender of the patient into his hands places upon the healer an immense responsibility and demands of him that every safeguard be thrown around the patient and his every interest cared for to the fullest extent that it is possible for the healer to go, as a matter of observance of professional ethics; but the law is not satisfied when the healer merely does his best, and requires of him that his best shall be equal to what the average member of his profession, in good standing, in the same locality would do in a similar situation and in view of the state of learning among the professional colleagues, generally, at the time, Miller vs. Toles, 183 Mich. 252, 150 N. W. 118. Granger vs. Still, 187 Mo. 197, 85 S. W. 1114. Palmer vs. Humiston, 87 Ohio St. 401, 101 N. E. 283, and places upon him liability for damages resulting from unskillful work, even if it is the best he could do. Nelson vs. Harrington, 72 Wis. 591, 40 N. W. 228. A healer who has been licensed by the state to conduct his business, and who offers his services to the public thereby represents himself as being endowed with sufficient learning, skill and judgment to exercise his calling in a diligent and careful manner, and the public has a right to accept him at his own estimate of himself; but simply because a healer has met every requirement of the law and is by reason thereof entitled to practice his profession, the public is not warranted in demanding that he exercise more than natural powers, and when the healer is diligent in the conduct of the case, and has used due care to ascertain the cause of the malady, and ordinary skill in treating it, an error of judgment on his part in the diagnosis will not render him liable for failure to produce the results desired. Gadney vs. Kingsley, 41 N. Y. St. Rep. 794, 16 N. Y. Supp. 792. Sherwood vs. Babcock, 175 N. W. 470 (Mich.) Wells vs. Ferry Baker L. Co., 57 Wash. 658, 107 Pac. 869. Jaeger vs. Stratton, 170 Wis. 579. The law is exacting in the matter of the demonstrated fitness of healers to practice their calling, both as regards their knowledge of it and their reputation, and demands that they conduct their business in its entirety as it ought to be conducted by honorable men and women, and blind justice refuses and fails to see and recognize the charlatan, the fakir, and the quack as a part of any school or system, for which reasons healers, in order to secure to themselves the benefit of the law's protection, must, in their practice, be careful, diligent and skillful as those qualities are measured and gauged by the standard of present-day learning and advancement in their science, and not confine themselves and their activities to within the rules and modes of practice of the outgrown past. Almon vs. Nugent, 34 Ia. 300, 11 Am. Rep. 147. Gillete vs. Tucker, 67 Ohio St. 106, 65 N. E. 865. Granger vs. Still, 187 Mo. 197, 85 8. W. 1114. Hrubes vs. Faber, 163 Wis. 89, 157 N. W. 519. Before the science and art of healing became separated into so many systems, and when the courts had comparatively few medical cases coming before them for decision, it was deemed to be sufficiently stringent to require of practitioners that they exercise only such a modicum of care and skill in their practice as was ordinarily exercised by other members of the profession in the same immediate locality. Force vs. Gregory, 63 Ċonn. 167, 27 Atl. 1116. Miller vs. Toles, 183 Mich. 252, 150 N. W. 118, but, as business increased and the means for the dissemination of information and knowledge advanced to higher perfection, the courts drew the lines more tightly, and it was concluded that it would not do to hold it to be sufficient evidence upon which to absolve a healer from liability if he merely proved that he had exercised only such a degree of skill and care as was customary among the practitioners in his locality, in view of the fact that "there might be but few practicing in the given locality, all of whom might be quacks, ignorant pretenders to knowledge not possessed by them, and it would not do to say, that, because one possessed and exercised as much skill as others, he could not be chargeable with the want of reasonable skill," Burke vs. Foster, 114 Ky. 20, 69 S. W. 1096. Viita vs. Fleming 132 Minn. 128, 155 N. W. 1077. and now "a physician or surgeon, or one who holds himself as such whether duly licensed or not, when he accepts an employment to treat a patient professionally, must exercise such reasonable care and skill in that behalf as is usually possessed and exercised by physicians or surgeons in good standing, of the same school of practice, in the vicinity or locality of his practice, having due regard to the advanced state of medical or surgical science at the time." Nelson vs. Harrington, 72 Wis. 591, 40 N. W. 228. but, "when a physician exercises that degree of care, diligence, judgment, Notwithstanding that the lawmakers have, in many instances, declined to permit the members of some of the several schools or systems to be licensed to practice by a board of examiners composed of members belonging to that particular school only, after examination upon the subjects necessary to demonstrate their knowledge of the science and their qualifications to practice a particular system of healing, and have required of them a knowledge of things entirely outside of their own field of labor, the courts have taken the wider, more open and fairer view of it, and in their decisions have not so burdened them, but almost universally hold that the healer's skill in treating the sick is to be measured by the present state of knowledge within his or her own system or school, and, in order that every "ism" or "plan of operation" or "fad" may not assume the dignity of a school or system the courts have defined what is to be deemed to constitute a school or system by saying that to be a school of medicine, “it must have rules and principles of practice for the guidance of all its members as respects principles, diagnoses, and remedies, which each member is supposed to observe in a given case. One school may believe in the potency of drugs and blood-letting, another may believe in the principle similia similibus curantur; still others may believe in the potency of water, or roots and herbs, yet each school has its own peculiar principles and rules for the government of its practitioners in the treatment of disease." Granger vs. Still, 187 Mo. 197, 85 S. W. 1114. Nelson vs. Harrington, 72 Wis. 591, 40 N. W. 228. When a healer holds himself out to the public as a practitioner within the rules and principles of a certain school or system, he merely offers to care for the patient who employs him according to the method prescribed and approved by that particular school of healing to which he belongs, and the most that may rightfully be required of him is that he shall keep abreast of the modern learning within his own profession, in so far as it is available to him if he be diligent in seeking it, and with due care and skill administer the treatment approved by his own school of healing in the treatment given in the case at hand. Pike vs. Honsinger, 155 N. Y. 201, 49 N. E. 760. Sawdey vs. Spokane Falls, etc., 30 Wash. 349, 94 A. S. R. 880. Miller vs. Toles, 183 Mich. 252. 150 N. W. 118. Martin vs. Courtney, 75 Minn, 255, 77 N. W. 813. Williams vs. Poppleton, 3 Ore. 139. Healers who take the initiative and go to probing into the unknown, leaving the beaten path of recognized and approved principles and rules of practice, assume the risk and accept the perils attendant upon such journey into the unfathomed depths. Miller vs. Toles, 183 Mich. 252, 150 N. W. 118. Sawdey vs. Spokane, etc., 30 Wash. 349, 70 Pac. 972. and it is these probers into the dark places-the investigators-the men who take the chance-who prove the truth of every science and bring to a state of perfection every art. |