_Average Standard of Skill of any Professed School must be Attained._—It is also a rule that one who professes to adhere to a particular school must come up to its average standard, and must be judged by its tests, and in the light of the present day. Thus a physician who would practise the reckless and indiscriminate bleeding which was in high repute not very many years ago, or should shut up a patient in fever and deny all cooling drinks, would doubtless find the old practice a poor excuse for his imbecility. So, if a professed homœopathist should violate all the canons of homœopathy, he would be bound to show some very good reasons for his conduct, if it was attended with injurious effects. Upon many points of medical and surgical practice all of the schools are agreed, and indeed common sense and universal experience prescribe some invariable rules, to violate which may generally be called gross negligence. Yet the patient cannot justly complain if he gets only that quality and kind of service for which he bargains. If he employs a cheap man, he must expect cheap service. Puffendorf, in his “Law of Nature and Nations,” observes: “We read a pleasant story of a man who had sore eyes and came to a horse-doctor for relief. The doctor anointed his eyes with the same ointment he used among his horses, upon which the man falls blind, and the cause is brought before the judge, who acquits the physician. For if the fellow, says he, had not been an ass he had never applied himself to a horse-doctor.” See also Jones on Bailments, 100; 1 Field’s “Lawyers’ Briefs,” sub. Bailments, Sec. 573; Musser _v._ Chase, 29 Ohio St., 577; Lanphier _v._ Phipos, 8 Carr. & Payne, 478. _Degree of Care and Skill Used a Question of Fact._—In an action at law, whether brought by a physician to recover for his services, or by a patient to recover for malpractice or neglect, it is always a question of fact, to be determined by the jury under proper instructions as to the measure of care and skill required, whether or not the physician has in a given case used that degree of care and displayed that amount of skill which might reasonably be expected of a man of ordinary ability and professional skill. These same rules apply to the surgeon. He must possess and exercise that degree of knowledge and sense which the leading authorities have announced, as a result of their researches and experiments up to the time, or within a reasonable time before, the issue or question to be determined is made.[165]