Inviolability of the Hitman Body.

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that he is not answerable for inevitable acci dent or the act of God, if his act was unlaw ful or the injury intentional or committed with an original design rendering the injury possible. See notes, l Eng. Rui. Cas. 208, 209. The law formerly made so much allowance for the ignorance of physicians that it would not punish for murder the quack Thompson, who was the founder of the "Thompsonian" school of vegetable remedies, sweating and purging, and who purged one patient of his life. (This precious imposter had two remedies which he called "tom-cats" and "well-my-gristle.") Com. v. Thompson, б Mass. 134. And this reprehensible doctrine is followed in State v. Schulz, 55 Iowa, 698; 39 Am. Rep. 187. But the Massachusetts court has gone back on the old doctrine, Com. f. Pierce, 138 Mass. 165; 52 Am. Rep. 264; and Arkansas is of the same mind, State v. Hardister, 38 Ark. 605, 43 Am. Rep. 5. So the prudent traveler will seek Boston or Hot Springs, rather than Des Moines. It seems to have been the ancient notion, however, that if a sick man intrusted his body for treatment to one whom he knew for a quack, or not to profess skill in the particular disease, it was at his own risk, for the trustee should not be held to a kind or degree of skill that he did not possess. Sir William Jones says (Bailments, 100) : "A man who had a disorder in his eyes called on a farrier for a remedy, and he applied to them a remedy commonly used for his patients; the man lost his sight and brought an action for damages, but the judge said no action lies, for if the complain ant himself had not been an ass he never would have employed a farrier." So sacred does the law regard the human body that it strongly resents any violence to anything connected with it, although temporarily, and not even forming a custom ary appendage to it. As for example, driv ing against a carriage in which, or striking a horse on which, another is riding, or striking

a cane held by another. In Res publica v. De Longchamps, i Dallas, 114, the chevalier defendant, having a grievance against the French consul-general, Francis Barbe Marbois, addressed abusive words to him in French at the consulate, and subsequently struck his cane which he was carrying, in the public street, which cane the latter thereupon applied to the person of the chevalier " with great severity." It was held that as the chevalier committed the first assault, he was worthy of punish ment in spite of his being a dragoon of Noailles, and for his " atrocious violation of the law of nations " he was sentenced to pay one hundred French crowns to the commonwealth, to be imprisoned for two years, and to give security to keep the peace in a thousand pounds, and to pay the costs. Probably if the chevalier had foreseen what a price a blow on that cane was to cost him he would have applied it to the body of the Monsieur Marbois. A still more remarkable case is State v. Davis, i Hill (S. C.), 46. Robertson, a deputy sheriff, took possession of a negro slave by virtue of a chattel mortgage, and, having occasion to stop over night at an inn to prevent the evaporation of the property, he chained it to the bedpost, and tied it with a rope to his own body in the bed. The defendants broke the chain, cut the rope, and carried off the negro, without any force to the body of Robertson, and this was held an assault and battery. " The rope was as much identified with his person, as the hat or coat which he wore, or the stick which he held in his hand." The court made no allusion to injury to feelings on account of Robertson's strong attachment to the negro. So in Dubuc De Marentille z Oliver, Pennington, 275, it was deemed an assault to strike a horse which another was driv ing; and so in Clark г-. Downing, 55 Vt. 259; but it was held to the contrary in Kirland v. State, 43 Ind. 146. The court