guard is thrown around the physician his judgment may be clouded, or his confidence shaken by the dread of responsibility, at those critical moments when it is all important that he should retain the free and undisturbed enjoyment of his faculties, in order to use them for the benefit of the patient” [441]. In the olden time, front teeth were considered very valuable. Our ancestors appear to have used them in fighting, and the hurting of a man so as to render him less able in fighting to defend himself or annoy his adversary, was considered a misdemeanor of the highest kind, and spoken of by my Lord Coke as the greatest offence under felony. To cut off an ear or strike off a nose was nothing to the knocking out of a fore-tooth, for a nose or an ear is useless in a fight—doubtless they are in the way [442]. According to that system of punishment introduced into England by the Engles, which compensated every injury by a money payment, a front tooth was valued highly, and one who deprived another of such a member had to pay six shillings, while breaking a rib only cost half as much, and shattering a thigh only twelve shillings [443]. The fact that a dentist extracts teeth for love and not for money does not relieve him of his liability for failure to perform his work properly [444]; and if one is foolish enough |167| to allow an ignorant apprentice to practise on his teeth, he can still recover from the dentist for any injuries [445]. It is a good answer to an action brought by a dentist to recover payment for his work and labor, that the defendant has been injured instead of benefited by the plaintiff’s treatment, either because of his want of skill or his negligence. So, when Mr. Gilpin went to Mr. Wainwright to have a tooth extracted, and Wainwright gave him chloroform, and then pulled out the wrong tooth, and Gilpin declined to pay for the performance, alleging a want of consideration, the dentist sued for his account, but the Court gave judgment against him [446]. If the dentist’s bill has been increased owing to his own mistake or wrong doing—as where being employed to pull out one tooth and insert a false one, he pulled out two, and so had to put in two; he cannot recover for this additional amount of work. Lord Kenyon well put this when he said: “If a man is sent for to extract a thorn which might be pulled out with a pair of nippers, and through his misconduct it becomes necessary to amputate the limb, shall it be said, that he may come into a court of justice to recover fee for the cure of the wound which he himself has caused?” [447]. To put the question is to give the answer. In fact, in such a case as the one put, it would appear that not only could no recovery be had for the additional services rendered necessary by the dentist’s own want of proper care, but the man whose grinders were thus made few would be entitled to a further deduction from the bill for the bodily suffering and damage he had sustained [448].