QUAINT CURES

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18069, 19 March 1923, Page 8

QUAINT CURES

A CHARM THAT FAILED. “SEVEN HEADS OF FAT BATS.” Doctors, in many.ways, are fortunate class, declares the Sydney “Sun” No profession, probably, is so continually abused or maae the butt of so many jests and giboa. It would almost seem, indeed, at as though the doctor could do nothing right. Only the other clay a patient in a great London hospital actually prosecuted an unfortunate surgeon for saving his life without asking his permission first! He complained that the surgeon had operated on him without due notice being given him. Could unreasonableness further go. It, is fortunate for the doctors that irascible patients are nowadays restrained from expressing their opinion of their medical man with the same hearty frankness as m the goon old days. The lime is past when John of Bohemia, the blind king who was killed at tlie battle of Crecy, could sew his doctor up m dV;=ae v and throw him into the nvei because he had failed to cure fqtnract. Cures in tlie Middle A o es were "frequently made the subject of a formal contract, and woe betide the hapless doctor who did in carrying out. his part ot the• gain! On the otner.hand, a medieval jurv seems to have shown a re malleable sympathy for the doetor jn tlie dock, and very seldom held him re sponsible for the death of liis patients.