A medical man is liable to a civil action for injury resulting to a patient from his negligence or unskilful treatment, although the patient neither employed nor was to pay him. As Baron Parke said: “If an apothecary administers improper medicines to his patient, or a surgeon unskilfully treats him, and thereby injures his health, he will be liable to the patient, even where the father or friend of the patient may have been the contracting party with the apothecary or surgeon; for, though no such contract had been made, the apothecary, if he gave improper medicines, or the surgeon, if he took him as a patient and unskilfully treated him, would be liable to an action for a misfeasance” [180]. And as Richards, C.B., said: “From the necessity of the thing, the only person who can properly sustain an action for damages for an injury done to the person of a patient, is the patient himself, for damages could not be given on that account to any other person, although the surgeon may have been retained and employed by him to undertake the case” [181]; and in this same case, which was an |75| action brought by a husband and a wife for an injury done to the wife, Garrow, B., said; “In the practice of surgery, the public are exposed to great risks from the number of ignorant persons professing a knowledge of the art, without the least pretensions to the most necessary qualifications, and they often inflict very serious injury on those who are so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. In cases of the most brutal inattention and neglect, the patients would be precluded frequently from seeking damages by course of law, if it were necessary to enable them to recover, that there should have been a previous retainer, on their part, of the person professing to be able to cure them. In all cases of surgeons retained by any public establishments, it would happen that the patient would be without redress, for it could hardly be expected that the governors of an infirmary should bring an action against the surgeon employed by them to attend the child of poor parents, who may have suffered from his negligence and inattention” [182]. As in the case of an attorney, so with a physician, it is not every mistake or misapprehension that will make him liable to an action for negligence. There is scarcely a case in which a physician is called in, in which he may not be charged with _culpa levissima_, or the omission to ward off every possible casualty; and if _culpa levissima_ makes him liable, then his liability becomes almost co-extensive with his practice. He is only responsible for _culpa levis_ [183].