Jessel, M. R., recently asked the question, “What is the meaning of selling a medical practice?” And in answering his query he said, “It is the selling of the introduction of the patients of the doctor who sells to the doctor who buys, he has nothing else to sell except the introduction. He can persuade his patients, probably, who have confidence in him to employ the gentleman he introduces as being a qualified man, and fit to undertake the cure of their maladies, but that is all he can do. Therefore, when you talk of the sale of a non-dispensing medical practice—of course, when a man keeps what is called a doctor’s shop, there is a different thing entirely to sell—you are really talking of the sale of the introduction to the patients, and the length, the |192| character and duration of the introduction, the terms of the introduction are everything. And there is something more, according to my experience, in cases of the sale of medical practices; there is always a stipulation that the selling doctor shall retire from practice either altogether or within a given distance. It is so always, and there is also sometimes a stipulation that he will not solicit the patients, or shall not solicit them for a given time. They are both very important stipulations as regards keeping together the practice for the purchasing doctor” [503]. The general rule of law is, that any contract in general restraint of trade or industry is illegal and void as contrary to public policy; but such contracts are valid if they operate merely as a partial restraint, and are made for good consideration, and not unreasonable. Whether they are reasonable or not, is for the Court, not the jury, to say. A contract made with an assistant, or with a partner, that upon separating from the principal, or partner, he will not practise within a certain section of country, or for a certain time, is valid when made in consideration of instruction to be given, or pecuniary or other benefits to be enjoyed in consequence of the partnership. The limits must be reasonable, and when the contract is not to practise within so many miles of a certain place, the distance will be measured “as the crow flies,” unless otherwise mentioned [504]. Covenants, on the part of an assistant to a surgeon and apothecary, not to practise on his own account for fourteen years, in a certain town, or within ten miles of the town; and not at any time to practise within five, seven, ten, twenty miles of certain places, have been all respectively |193| held good [505]. The comparative populousness of the district forbidden ought not to enter into consideration at all; and an assistant to a dentist was held bound by a covenant not to practise in London, notwithstanding that city had a population of over a million [506]. But a stipulation not to practise within one hundred miles of York, in consideration of receiving instruction in dentistry, was held void [507].