treatment. In some of the large cities of Saxony, Dresden, Leipsic and Chemnitz, it is not unusual for an ignorant quack to receive from $1,500 to $2,000 a year, an income beyond the average earnings of the scientifically equipped medical man throughout Germany. Attention is also directed to the number of women quacks who profess to have magnetic powers. In Saxony alone there are several hundred, and among their patients are some of the proudest names in the land.

The authorities of Berlin and its province are publishing the following circular of warning for the public, drawn up by a committee appointed by the Berlin Medical Chamber: "While physicians thoroughly trained and approved by the state disdain to advertise their services, there are numbers of other persons who have no training or special knowledge who yet seek to delude the suffering public by advertising in the papers, or distributing circulars or by worthless books in the hands of agents, assuming false titles, making baseless promises and publishing forged or bought or fraudulent testimonials. The immense sums paid out for this advertising demonstrate the large profits that are made out of this business. During the eight years ending 1897 there were 177 criminal suits against these charlatans on account of severe injury or death from their practices, and the total resulting imprisonment amounted to 63 years, 3 months and one day. The legislature assumes that the public is enlightened enough to protect itself against such swindling speculation on the credulity of the sick. The public should apply the ordinary prudence customary in business transactions to matters affecting health and even life itself! The title of physician alone guarantees that the bearer has been found fully qualified by the state. All other titles should be regarded with mistrust. All published testimonials should likewise be mistrusted unless the person signing the testimonial is personally known and personal inquiry has been made.'-J. A. M. A.

ESTATE LIABLE FOR MAINTENANCE OF INSANE.

By a recent decision of the court, the public administrator and an estate of which he had charge were ordered to pay a goodly sum to the city of St. Louis for board, the owner of the estate having been for a long period confined in the insane asylum. Payment was for a time denied on the ground that the asylum was a charitable institution, but the court decided the debt was a just one if the individual or his estate was able to pay.

A. C. KATT, Local Agent

FORT WAYNE, INDIANA

Medico Legal
Bulletin.

f

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Statute of Limitations in Malpractice Actions.

An important plea often made use of in the malpractice action is that of the statute of limitations. If the plea holds good, the action is barred, great expense and time are saved and the case is forever dismissed from further prosecution. What this statute is and the application of its provisions to the malpractice action is the subject before us for brief consideration.

The word "limitation" as it is used in this connection, means the time which is prescribed by the authority of the law, at the end of which no action at law can be maintained. By the Roman law this term appears under the title of "prescription," from the term "prescribo," which expresses the meaning of the word "limit" in the sense we are using it here. The title "prescription," however, has existed in some form, and under some name, as a part of the municipal law of every civilized nation with the exception of the Jewish. The Jewish law provided that all lands not in possession of the true owner should be returned to him at the jubilee. The law of Athens, on the other hand, says Angell, contained a general prohibition of all actions, where the injury had been committed six years before the complaint was made. The Twelve Tables of Rome limited the recovery of possession of land to two years, and the more advanced Roman law modified this provision to three years for certain movable property, and to ten and twenty years for immovable property, such as the land itself. Through all the modifications which this celebrated law has from time to time received and in all the varied forms in which it has been administered to

the modern nations of continental Europe, some term of time has been invariably observed, as the limit at the end of which a party shall, in all cases, be completely exonerated from all judicial interference.

Coming to the British Isles we find that in 1469 the Scottish government, which used the civil law, established a negative prescription for simple obligations, which became considerably extended by practice, until finally in 1617 heritable bonds and other heritable rights were included. By the act of 1579 book accounts were limited to three years, but no limitation upon bills and notes was fixed in Scotland until the twelfth year of the reign of George III., when an act was passed providing a limitation of six years.

In England, and the history of limitation of actions at law in our own country is intimately connected with that of England, there was no limitation to any action until the various acts of parliament prescribed certain limits within which to bring the action. Undoubtedly, however, at an early period in that country, the heir of the tenant had a limited time a year and a day-in which to claim after the death of his ancestor, and if he did not present his claim within that time, he was without remedy. Another ancient doctrine was that of the fines. The fine is an agreement or composition of a suit, actual or fictitious, by leave of the court, by which the lands in question become, or are acknowledged to be, the right of one of the parties. It put an end not only to the suit thus commenced, but also to all other suits or controversies over the same subject matter. The fines thus made were regulated by statute in the time of Henry VII. and put an end to all controversies and suits after five years. More modern acts of limitations are somewhat analogous to this doctrine, as in the early New York statute, where five years was allowed for claiming against a fine.

There were all sorts of periods of time fixed upon in the early acts of parliament for various actions. Some limited certain actions to the time of the reign of a certain king, or to

the last return of King John from Ireland, or to the first coronation of Richard I. The latter statute-1 and 2 Westminstercaused many suits, troubles and inconveniences to arise, and, "therefore," says Lord Coke, "a more direct and commodious course was taken which was to endure forever, and calculated so to impose diligence on, and vigilance in, him that was to bring his action, so that by one common law certain limitations might serve, both for the time present and for all times to come." The first statute to follow this course was that of 32, Henry VIII., in 1540, and some years after the more comprehensive statute of 21, James I., entitled, “An Act for Limitations of Actions and for Avoiding of Suits at Law," followed. This latter statute is the first positive enactment in England which provided a limitation to an action upon contract or for personal injury, as the House of Lords said in a case in 13 East Reports, that at common law the plaintiff might have sued at any time and that there was an unlimited right of suit until restrained by this statute.

The colonial states generally adopted this statute and it formed the basis of the present statutes of limitations in the various states today. Any difference that exists in any of the states between the provisions of that statute in respect to personal actions is more in words than in substance. The state statutes are either an exact transcript of the statute of James I., or a revision or modification of it. The section which refers to personal actions is as follows:

"And be it further enacted, that all actions of trespass quare clausum fregit, all actions of trespass, detinue, action, sur trover, and replevin for taking away of goods and cattle, all actions of account, and upon the case, other than such accounts as concern the trade of merchandise between merchant and merchant their factors or servants, all actions of debt grounded upon any lending or contract without specialty; all actions of debt for arrearages of rent, and all actions of assault, menace, battery, wounding, and imprisonment, or any of them, which shall be sued or brought at any time after the