In a criminal case, Denman, J., told the jury that it made no difference whether a medical man was dealing with a patient or acting as a volunteer, and dealing with a friend or with his own wife [153]. But Cockburn, C.J., in a case where a patient in a hospital sued two surgeons for injury received from being scalded in a bath, in which he had been placed by the nurses on the orders of the surgeons, said, no doubt persons who went as patients into hospitals were not to be treated with negligence; but, on the other hand, medical gentlemen who gave their services gratuitously were not to be made liable for negligence for which they were not personally responsible. The jury gave a verdict in favour of the doctors [154]. If a sick man applies to one, not a physician, for |67| gratuitous medical assistance, and this one either does not exert all his skill, or administers improper medicine to the best of his ability, he is not liable for damage [155]. The amount of prudence which a man must exercise in selecting a physician, and the means to be cured, is the same that any prudent and reasonable man would do in any other matter [156]. It is the duty of a patient to co-operate with his medical adviser, and to conform to the necessary prescriptions; and if, under the pressure of pain, he does not, or, if by refusing to adopt the remedies of the physician, he frustrates the latter’s endeavours, or, if he aggravates the case by his own misconduct, he cannot charge against the physician the consequences due distinctively to himself; for no one can take advantage of his own wrong. In such a case, even if the physician’s treatment was objectionable, he can only recover nominal damages; and if the injury was due to the patient’s fractiousness and disregard of the doctor’s orders (the latter being judicious), no action at all will lie [157]. In Ohio, it was held that, in an action for malpractice in the treatment of a swollen ankle and diseased foot, the Judge had not erred in saying to the jury, “If you find that the defendant directed the plaintiff to observe absolute rest as a part of the treatment to his foot, and that direction was such as a surgeon or physician of ordinary skill would adopt or sanction, and the patient negligently failed to observe such direction, or purposely disobeyed the same, and that such negligence or disobedience approximately |68| contributed to the injury of which he complains, he cannot recover in this action; although he may prove that the defendant’s negligence and want of skill also contributed to the injury. The injured party must not have contributed at all.” The information given by a surgeon to his patient concerning the nature of his malady is a circumstance that should be considered in determining whether the patient, in disobeying the instructions of the surgeon, was guilty of negligence or not [158].