As examples of the first class of cases may be cited those instances, happily not numerous in the annals of the profession, where a physician or surgeon when treating a female patient has had carnal connection with her, representing that he was using that method of treating her to cure her disease. Such a case was Reg. _v._ Case, 1 Eng. Law & Eq., 544 (s. c., 1 Den. C. C., 580).[186] _Honest Intent no Defence in Such Cases._—In Reg. _v._ Reed, 1 Den. C. C., 377 (s. c., 2 Car. & K., 967), it was contended as a defence that the defendant really believed that he was curing his patient by treating her in this extraordinary way. The Court, per Wildes, C. J., brushed aside this contention with scorn, saying: “The notion that a medical man may lawfully adopt such a method of treatment is not to be tolerated in a court of justice;” and in this case and in others, convictions have been sustained for the crime of rape or of attempting to commit rape.[187] Another example of wilful malpractice would be wilful neglect of a patient by his medical attendant, who became intoxicated voluntarily, though this will generally come under the second subdivision, as most states and countries have enacted statutes making it a criminal offence to practise medicine or surgery when intoxicated. =Acts Forbidden by Statute.=—Within the second subdivision of the definition, or acts declared unlawful by statute, fall the cases of committing or attempting to commit an abortion, and cases of prescribing for or treating a patient by one voluntarily intoxicated. If the abortion is attempted without the knowledge or consent of the woman, and under the pretence of performing a necessary operation upon her to cure disease, undoubtedly the physician would be liable to a criminal prosecution by the State for the offence of committing an abortion and to civil action by her to recover damages. If the abortion was committed with her consent, while she would have no right of action against him for damages, he would be liable to criminal prosecution under the statute. _Abortion Not a Crime by the Common Law._—At common law it was not a crime to commit an abortion with the mother’s consent if the child had not quickened. In Mitchell _v._ Com., 78 Ky., 204 (s. c., 39 Am. Reports, 227), the Court, per Hines, J., says: “After a patient investigation we are forced to the conclusion that it was never called a punishable offence at common law to produce, with the consent of the mother, an abortion prior to the time when the mother became quick with child. It was not even murder at common law to take the life of the child at any period of gestation, even in the very act of delivery.” See also Evans _v._ People, 49 N. Y., 86.