Legal Responsibility for Medical Malpractice

III. DIRECT CAUSATION (PROXIMATE CAUSE) In law, as in medicine, the question of responsible cause, the relation of cause and effect, is a perennial inquiry; one constantly seeks to incriminate some causal agent when the status quo has been changed. In medicine, as in law, the question arises: At what point should one rest in his effort to trace back the responsible or efficient cause? The pure scientist will say, I shall halt only where crudities of present science momentarily make halting necessary; no cause' can ever be too remote for concern, so long as some preceding cause still lies undiscovered. The medical practitioner will say, I must concern myself with the immediate cause, the cause of the sudden illness of John Jones, which will enable me to treat him intelligently and fairly and do reasonable justice to his case. Practicality will not permit me to go into remote causes