Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

In the case of vaccination, the physician, while he does not guarantee the specific value of the vaccine virus, yet guarantees its freshness, so that if he inoculate a patient with virus in an altered state, constituting as it then would mere putrid animal matter, and erysipelas or any injury to any limb necessitating amputation should arise, he will undoubtedly be held responsible for the suffering, loss of time, and permanent injury to the patient.

Long since Lord Kenyon was of the opinion that if a surgeon was sent for to extract a thorn, which might be pulled out with a pair of nippers, and through his misconduct it became necessary to amputate the limb, the surgeon could not come into a court of justice to recover fees for the cure of the wound which he himself had caused.

The physician, when sending in his bill, should be specific in his charges, and not general.

He should give the number of visits and dates.

So when Mr. Gilpin went to Mr. Wainwright to have a tooth extracted, and Wainwright gave him chloroform and then pulled out the wrong tooth, and Gilpin declined to pay for the performance, alleging a want of consideration, the dentist sued for his account, but the court gave judgment against him.

If the dentist's bill had been increased owing to his own mistake or wrongdoing, as where being employed to pull out one tooth and insert a false one, he pulled out two and so had to put in two, he cannot recover for this additional amount of work.

Lord Kenyon well put this when he said, "If a man is sent for to extract a thorn which might be pulled out with a pair of nippers, and through his misconduct it becomes necessary to amputate the limb, shall it be said that he may come into a court of justice to recover fee for the cure of the wound which he himself has caused? To put the question is to give the answer." In fact, in such a case as the one put, it would appear that not only could no recovery be had for the additional services rendered necessary by the dentist's own want of proper care, but the man whose grinders were thus made few would be entitled to a further deduction from the bill for the bodily suffering and damage he had sustained.

One cannot reasonably expect to have teeth as well fitted to the mouth by art as nature.