“Some three years ago Dr. Purdy, a well-known and esteemed physician, gave notice to the health department of New York City, in accordance with a regulation of the sanitary code which makes it the duty of physicians to notify this department of cases of infectious diseases, that in his opinion a young woman who was under his treatment was suffering with smallpox. The department sent one of its medical officers to investigate the case. The diagnosis made by Dr. Purdy was then confirmed and by the authority of the board of health the patient was transferred to the smallpox hospital. After a day or two the patient was discharged. This patient immediately brought suit against Dr. Purdy for $10,000 damages, on the ground of injury to her business and of the false diagnosis upon the part of her medical attendance. The jury which tried this case gave a verdict of $500 against the defendant. The singular injustice of this verdict resides in the fact that damages should have been brought against Dr. Purdy, when, in point of fact, the injury to the plaintiff was inflicted by the health department, which not only affirmed the diagnosis of the attending physician, but caused the removal of the patient to be made to the smallpox hospital. It appears that Dr. Purdy's sole error in the case was in informing the health authorities of the possible existence of smallpox. In the discharge of a duty imposed upon him by a city ordinance he has been subjected to the expense and annoyance of a legal case, and has been mulcted by a jury to the extent of $500.” “Another suit of a blackmailing character has been brought against Dr. E. Williams and partners of Cincinnati, O. According to the Cincinnati _Medical News_, the charge was that they had permitted a small scale of iron, that had entered the eye of a boy, to remain, by which he eventually became blind—the sound eye becoming affected through sympathy with the injured one and losing the power of vision. It was proven on trial that the boy had visited the office of Dr. Williams but twice, and then had ceased calling because he was informed that, to preserve the sound eye and be saved from blindness, he must consent to have the eye that had been destroyed removed from its socket, to which his parents would not consent. For several months after declining the services of Dr. Williams and associates, he spent his time in going the rounds of the specialists of diseases of the eye, putting his case in charge, at different times, of both regular and homœopathic physicians. Every ophthalmologist by whom he was treated informed him that the only way by which he could avoid becoming blind was to have the injured eye removed. Finally, after losing sight in both eyes, he brought suit. The medical testimony, we are told, was uniformly in favor of Dr. Williams, but the jury disagreed.”