A physician, however, may fail to obtain the benefits which a grateful patient has wished him to have under a will, if—as was done in one case—after a long attendance on a patient, he thinks fit, when she is almost on her deathbed, to prepare and procure the execution of a will by which he becomes the principal object of her bounty, to the exclusion of her near relatives; and to do this without the intervention of any solicitor or other person competent to give her advice, and to guard her against undue influence; for in such a case the interests of the public require that his conduct should be regarded by Courts of Justice with the utmost jealousy [384]. In another case, it was said that although there is no rule of law which forbids a man to bequeath his property to his medical attendant, yet it is not a favourable circumstance for one in such a confidential position, with respect to a patient labouring under a severe disease, to take a large benefit under such patient’s will, more particularly, if it be executed in secrecy and the whole transaction assumes the character of a clandestine proceeding, and in such a case the _onus_ will lie very heavily upon the party benefited to maintain the validity of the will [385]. Clairvoyant physicians may also get into trouble. An action was brought against one to set aside a marriage and a conveyance of property worth $25,000. The patient was old, feeble, deaf, childish and a firm spiritualist. The clairvoyant was a woman who pretended to be very modest and bashful and able to cure the deafness. After a course of treatment, mainly by manipulation, she told the old man that the spirits said that they must be married within two weeks, or something dreadful “would step in between them.” |143| By misrepresentations concerning her character and her friends she won the old man and his property. After the honeymoon the patient came to his senses, and prayed to get back his liberty and possessions, because of the fraud used. The Court granted his prayer [386]. To promise a cure is unprofessional, and to obtain money on the faith of such a promise is sometimes dangerous. Brown falsely represented himself to A., an ignorant negro, to be a practising physician, and that he had restored sight to the blind. He persuaded A. that his (A.’s) house was infected with poison, and that it was in the bed occupied by his granddaughter, that she was poisoned, and that he could remove the poison if he was paid for so doing. A. gave him $22 to remove it. The Court held that Brown had been guilty of obtaining money under false pretences [387].