Note 28 — Chapter VIII · GOOD AND BAD PRACTICE.

The bare fact that death results is obviously no proof of the want of skill, any more than the bare fact that a case has ended in recovery is proof of the possession of skill. But the disposition to which I have alluded is quite common, and gives rise to many unjust conclusions in regard to the merits of physicians. Hence physicians often manifest, in various ways, a dread of having the charge of cases, which are sure to end fatally. Some, to avoid the imputation of “bad luck,” as it is expressed, often manage adroitly to throw such cases off from their own hands into those of some neighboring practitioner, or some empiric, before death actually occurs.