When Doctors Differ.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 212, 12 January 1894, Page 3

When Doctors Differ.

- ♦ A medical man in Lancashire, believing himself to have been treated by a brother practitioner in a manner contrj.ry to professional etiquette, endeavoured to relieve his feelings by despatching to his rival a te'egram. •• Your conduct is abominable, and I shall not fail to resent it. " This was an attack that the receiver was not disposed to put up with, for telegrams are nece;>arilF seeu by more eyes than one, and a charge of *" abominable conduct " is apt to set yillage tongues wagging. S) hi called on the libeller for an npology, and this satisfaction not being forthcoming, he brought an actien for libel, which has just been tried at Manchester. The original quarrel was, it appeared, about a patient who, being dissatisfied with -his doctor, cal cd in a second, who ou^ht, it was alleged, to have not Bed the fact to his dismissed predecessor. But the judge declared that he had no sympathy with what he called " violating the right which doctors claim or s monopoly to kill,'" and he added, "I know doctors claim a right not to be interfered with, but the public have aa much right to change their doctor as they have to change their baker." For all that the Judge stigmatised the action as " a most trumpery one," and the jury found a verdict for tUe plantiff, with one farthing damages.