These communications between physician and patient, which may relate to the history of a transaction in which a wound has been received, or a particular disease communicated, whenever essential to the treatment of the patient’s case, are in some States of the American Union considered privileged communications, which the physician is either expressly forbidden, or not obliged, to reveal. This is the law in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. In Wisconsin he is not compelled, and in the other States named he is not allowed to make the disclosure; but in Minnesota the prohibition extends only to civil cases; and in Iowa, Indiana and Minnesota, the seal can be removed by the patient himself. In these States the confession, in order to be protected against disclosure, must relate exclusively to such matters as are indispensable to the professional treatment of the patient. Communications made outside of this sphere acquire no immunity from having been entrusted to physicians, for at common law such are not deemed privileged, and wherever so recognized they are the creatures of statutory enactment [228]. As stated, in some of the above-mentioned States, the party interested may waive the privilege, in which case the communication may be disclosed [229]. But in New York it is expressly enacted that “no person duly authorized to practise physic, or surgery, shall be allowed to disclose any information which he may have acquired in attending any |95| patient in a professional character, and which information was necessary to enable him to prescribe for such patient as a physician, or to do any act for him as a surgeon” [230]. Yet, even there, the statute will not be construed so as to shield a person charged with a crime, instead of being a protection to the victim, the patient [231]. The seal upon the physicians lips is not taken away by the patient’s death [232]. Necessarily all communications to be privileged must be of a lawful character, and not against morality or public policy; hence a consultation as to the means of procuring an abortion on another is not privileged; nor, by parity of reason, would any similar conference which was held for the purpose of devising a crime or evading its consequences [233].