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80 Ky. 178

Commonwealth v. Green

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

Decided March 28, 1882

Court of Appeals of Kentucky · decided 1882-03-28

Case 35 — INDICTMENT APPEAL PROM MONROE CIRCUIT COURT. The averment of bad faith is made in the indictment, and this is all that was necessary. 1. The indictment does not charge that the prescription given by appellee was plainly written or printed, and is therefore bad on demurrer. 2. It is not the policy of the law to interfere with the professional duty of physicians, and the statute should be strictly construed.

Decided 1882-03-28

JUDGE PRYOR

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The indictment is defective, and the demurrer was properly sustained. Whether the physician made a proper examination of the patient with the purpose of administering the whisky as a medicine in good faith is not to be determined by the pleader. It will not always answer in a pleading to follow the language of the statute in framing an .indictment, and this is of that class of cases.

¶3*179The examination of the patient may have been thorough on the part of the physician, and still, in the opinion of the pleader, or of the grand jury, not a proper examination. The facts must be alleged, showing a violation of the statute, either that the physician, with the intent to avoid the •Statute, and knowing the party was in no want of the stimulant, prescribed it for him, or that he gave him the whisky ■without making any examination whatever for the purpose of -ascertaining whether he was in need of the liquor given him. This statute should not be so construed as to interfere with ■professional duty, and before the physician can be subjected to a fine for its violation the facts showing his bad faith in ■administering the whisky must be alleged and proven.

¶4The judgment is affirmed.

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