Something like this prevails at this day in China. It is enacted in the Ta Tsing Leu Lee, that “when unskilful practitioners of medicine or surgery, administer drugs, or perform operations with the puncturing needle, contrary to the established rules and practice, and thereby kill the patient, the Magistrates shall call in other practitioners to examine the nature of the medicine, or of the wound, as the case may be, which proved mortal; and if it shall appear upon the whole to have been simply an error without any design to injure the patient, the practitioner shall be allowed to redeem himself from the punishment of homicide, as in cases purely accidental, but shall be obliged to quit his profession for ever. If it shall appear that a medical practitioner intentionally deviates from the established rules and practice, and while pretending to remove the disease of his patient, aggravates the complaint, in order to extort more money for its cure, the money so extorted shall be considered to have been stolen, and punishment inflicted accordingly, in proportion to the amount. If the patient dies, the medical practitioner who is convicted of designedly employing improper medicines, or otherwise contriving to injure his patient, shall suffer death by being beheaded after the usual period of confinement.” * * * * * No man ever entertained a higher opinion of medical science, and the dignity of a Physician than Van Helmont. What has been said of the Poet, ought in his opinion to be said of the Physician also, _nascitur, non fit_, and in his relation to the Creator, he was more Poet, or Prophet, whom the word VATES brings under one predicament,—more than Priest. _Scilicet Pater Misericordiarum, qui Medicum ab initio, ceu Mediatorem inter Deum et hominem, constituit, immo sibi in deliciis posuit, à Medico vinci velle, nimirum, ad hoc se creasse peculiari elogio, et elegisse testatur. Ita est sane. Non enim citius hominem punit Deus, infirmat, aut interimere minatur, sibi quam optet opponentem Medicum, ut se Omnipotentem, etiam meritas immittendo pœnas, vincat propriis clementiæ suæ donis. Ejusmodi autem Medici sunt in ventre matris præparati,—suo fungentes munere, nullius lucri intuitu, nudèque reflectuntur super beneplacitum (immo mandatum) illius, qui solus, verè misericors, nos jubet, sub indictione pœnæ infernalis, fore Patri suo similes._—Obedite præpositis _præceptum quidem: sed_ honora parentes, honora Medicum, _angustius est quam obedire, cum cogamur etiam obedire minoribus. Medicus enim Mediator inter Vitæ Principem et Mortem._