Document Type
Response or Comment
Publication Date
1-1919
Abstract
Van Sickle v. Doolittle, (Ia., 1918), 169 N. W. 141, was an action for malpractice against a physician of the homeopathic school of medicine. Upon the trial, a physician of the allopathic school was called, and after testifying that he was unskilled in the science of homeopathy, was allowed to testify that the treatment shown to have been given to the patient by defendant, would produce no physiological effect, and that proper treatment required the giving of such medicines as would produce such effect. This was held error upon the ground that the defendant was called to treat the patient as a homoeopathic physician and that his only obligation was to exercise such care and skill as was common to practitioners of that school of medicine, and the witness having been shown to be unskilled in the science of medicine as practiced by that school, was not qualified to speak as expert in the field involved. This would seem to be the only ruling which would avoid a fruitless controversy in the court room between two schools of medicine whose apostles would hesitate to agree on so simple a propositiori as that the normal man has one and not two livers.
Recommended Citation
Lane, Victor H. "Witness--Competency of an Allopathic Expert in the Field of Homeopathy--Opinion on Very Fact the Jury Must Determine." Mich. L. Rev. 17 (1919): 338-9.