However, in the celebrated case against the father and founder of the botanic or steam system of medicine, whose |89| favorite remedies were coffee, “well-my-gristle,” and “ram cats,” it was held, that if a person assuming to be a physician, through gross ignorance, but honestly and _bona fide_, administers medicine which causes the death of the patient, he is not guilty of manslaughter [217]. This was in the year 1809; and the doctrine laid down was followed in 1844 in Missouri in an exactly similar case [218]. And quite recently in Iowa, where one Shulz was tried for manslaughter because his patient died under the Baunscheidt practice, _i. e._, pricking the body and rubbing in a certain kind of oil, the Court on review said: “In 2 Bishop’s Criminal Law, (4th Ed.) sec. 695, the law upon this subject is declared as follows: ‘From the relationship of physician and patient the death of the latter not unfrequently arises. On this subject the doctrine seems to have been held that whenever one undertakes to cure another of disease or to perform on him a surgical operation, he renders himself thereby liable to the criminal law, if he does not carry to his duty some degree of skill, though what degree may not be clear; consequently, if the patient dies through his ill-treatment, he is indictable for manslaughter. On the other hand, a more humane doctrine is laid down, that since it is lawful and commendable for one to cure another, if he undertakes this office in good faith and adopts the treatment he deems best, he is not liable to be adjudged a felon, though the treatment should be erroneous, and in the eyes of those who assume to know all about this subject, which in truth is understood by no mortal, grossly wrong, and though he is a person called, by those who deem themselves wise, grossly ignorant of medicine and surgery. The former doctrine seems to be the English one, and so in England a person, whether a licensed medical practitioner or not, who undertakes to deal with the life or health of |90| people, is bound to have competent skill or suffer criminally for the defect. Now, if a man thinks he has competent skill, and makes no misrepresentation to his patients concerning the amount or kind of medical education actually received by himself, he seems in reason to stand on exactly the foundation occupied by every person who honestly undertakes medical practice after full advantages, so far as concerns his state of mind, and it is the mind to which we look in questions of legal guilt. Any person undertaking a cure, but being grossly careless and thus producing death, is for a different reason liable to a charge of manslaughter, whether he is a licensed practitioner or not.’ These cases seem to us to announce a correct rule. The interests of society will be subserved by holding a physician civilly liable in damages for the consequences of his ignorance, without imposing upon him criminal