A promise, whether verbal or written, made without good consideration by a medical man not to exercise or carry on his profession within certain limits is void. The stipulations in a contract not to practise are divisible, and if part of them be unreasonable, and therefore illegal and void, the agreement is not void altogether; and the remaining stipulations, if valid, will not be affected by the illegality of the others [508]. The relations of medical men to their apprentices, assistants and pupils, are, as a rule, regulated by the ordinary law of master and servant. No particular words are needed to create the relationship of master and apprentice, or master and assistant, the intention of the parties will be considered, nor need the agreement be in writing, unless it is not to be performed within a year from the making thereof [509]. A master is liable on contracts entered into by his apprentice or assistant, when he has authorized him to enter into any such contract, either expressly, or by implication. For instance, if an assistant usually orders drugs |194| on credit, and the master usually pays, the master will be held liable to pay for any goods of a similar nature which the assistant may get for his own and not his master’s use [510]. The master is also, as a rule, liable to a civil action for the wrongful acts of his assistant, unless they be beyond the ordinary scope of his employment; the plaintiff, however, must prove that the injury was produced by want of proper skill, where the act complained of is said to have arisen through want of skill [511]. But the master will not be criminally responsible for the acts of his assistant or apprentice, if the latter has caused the death of any one, unless, indeed, he has expressly commanded or taken part in the acts [512]. In a case of criminal negligence, the apprentice himself is responsible; if a party is guilty of negligence, and death results, the party guilty of that negligence is also guilty of manslaughter. An apprentice, or pupil, cannot be dismissed in as summary a way as an ordinary servant for misconduct. In one case it was held that though a person has a right to dismiss a servant for misconduct, still he has no right to turn away an apprentice because he misbehaves; and that the case of a young man, say of seventeen, who under a written agreement, is placed with a medical man as “pupil and assistant,” and with whom a premium is paid, is a case between that of apprenticeship and service; and if such an one on some occasions comes home intoxicated, this alone will not justify the surgeon in dismissing him. But if the “pupil and assistant,” by employing the shop boy to compound the medicines, occasions real danger to the surgeon’s practice, this would justify the surgeon in dismissing him [513]. |195|