In some States evidence of the general reputation of the defendant for skilfulness or the contrary is held admissible. In other States such evidence is held inadmissible (see Vol. XIV., Am. and Eng. Encyclopædia of Law, p. 83, and cases collected in Note 6). =Contributory Negligence.=—In conclusion it should be stated that the patient is bound to follow obediently all proper directions given him by his physician or surgeon, as to his diet, mode of life, time of taking and quantity of medicine to be taken, or the care of a diseased or injured member. Any disobedience of such directions which contributes to prevent a recovery will bar him from his right of action for malpractice, even though the medical man may have been somewhat negligent. In short, the same rule as to contributory negligence applies in this as in any other case of negligence. This principle has been so long and so well settled that citation of authority in support of it is unnecessary. THE LAW OF EVIDENCE CONCERNING CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN PHYSICIAN AND PATIENT. BY CHARLES A. BOSTON, _Counsellor-at-Law, of the New York City Bar_. CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN PHYSICIAN AND PATIENT. PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS. CONFIDENTIAL communications between physician and patient not infrequently may relate to matters that are the subjects of inquiry before judicial tribunals. When these communications are by law excluded from disclosure in evidence, they are termed _privileged_ communications. When such a disclosure is forbidden it is upon grounds of public policy,[207] “because greater mischiefs would probably result from requiring or permitting its admission, than from wholly rejecting it.” COMMON LAW. The common law required an inviolable secrecy to be observed by attorneys with reference to the communications which they had received from their clients.[208] But writers upon the law of evidence state that under the English rule protection from disclosure in evidence in a court of justice was not extended to communications between a medical man and his patient.[209]