ily ailment, without
any deleterious consequences. If once a patient becomes a slave to the
morphine or cocaine habit, the only cure is to cut off all the supply of
the drug either at once or, at any rate, by daily diminution. To leave
him free control of the poison is to co-operate in his self-destruction.

6. The sixth duty of a Doctor is of a different kind. There exists a
tacit or implicit contract between him and his patients that he shall
keep their secrets of which he becomes possessed in his professional
capacity. It is always wrong wantonly to betray the secrets of others;
but the Doctor is bound by a special duty to keep his professional
secrets; and it is doubly wrong and disgraceful in him to make them
known. For instance, if he has treated a case of sickness brought on by
sinful excesses of any kind, he is forbidden by the natural law to talk
about it to such as have no special right to know the facts. Parents and
guardians are usually entitled to be informed of their children's and
their wards' wrong-doings, that they may take proper measures to prevent
further evil. Besides, the Doctor is properly in their service; he is
paid by them, and, therefore, his contract is with them rather than with
the children. He can, therefore, prudently inform them of what is wrong,
but he cannot inform others.

It is a debated question in Medical Jurisprudence whether the Doctor's
professional knowledge of criminal acts should be privileged before the
courts, so that he should not be forced to testify to a crime that he
has learned from his patients while acting as their medical adviser.
Dr. Ewell speaks thus on the subject (p. 2): "The medical witness should
remember that, by the common law, a medical man has no privilege to
avoid giving in evidence any statement made to him by a patient; but
when called upon to do so in a court of justice, he is bound to disclose
every communication, however private and confidential, which has been
made to him by a patient while attending him in a professional
capacity. By statute, however, in some of the United States,
communications made by a patient to a physician when necessary to the
treatment of a case are privileged; and the physician is either
expressly forbidden or not obliged to reveal them. Such statutes exist
in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, New York, and Wisconsin. The seal upon the
physician's lips is not even taken away