Medical practitioners are of course equally liable with other men to an action for defamation, in respect of any |136| false and malicious communication, whether oral or written, made by them to the damage of another, in law or in fact; circumstances, however, frequently arise where, from the nature of their employment, it becomes their duty or interest to make some communication prejudicial to the character or conduct of another, and in such cases, where the occasion on which the communication was made rebuts the presumption of malice, (which the law infers from such a statement,) such communication is said to be privileged, and therefore, in order to sustain an action for defamation, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant was actuated by express or actual malice—that is, malice independent of the occasion on which the communication was made. The legal canon is, that a communication made _bona fide_, upon any subject matter in which the party communicating has an interest, or in reference to which he has a duty, is privileged, if made to a person having a corresponding interest or duty, although it contains criminatory matter, which (without this privilege) would be slanderous and actionable. This applies, moreover, though the duty be not a legal one, but only a moral or social duty of imperfect obligation, and also where the communication is made to a person not in fact having such interest or duty, but who might reasonably be, and is supposed by the party making the communication to have such interest or duty [364]. Even where the evidence of duty is not present to the mind, but the speaker is impelled by a sense of propriety, on which he does not pause to reflect, and which he refers to no special motive, nevertheless, if his conduct in speaking the words be within the occasion of interest or of duty which is capable of protecting, the communication will be considered privileged [365]. Words spoken by the medical officer of a college concerning |137| the meat furnished to the institution; and words used by the medical attendant of a poor-law union about the wine supplied to the inmates, are privileged, in the absence of proof of actual malice [366]. A statement made by a physician that an unmarried woman is pregnant is not a privileged communication, unless made in good faith to one who is reasonably entitled to receive the information [367]. |138| CHAPTER XI. RELATIONS WITH PATIENTS.