In re McCowin's Estate

after mature consideration, determined that a physician’s account for medicines etc., to a- person in his last illness should in future be held and deemed a debt to be paid next to the funeral expenses, and prior to all others. And that , from the necessity of the thing, it being supposed that, without this assurance, poor persons might often be left to languish, and perhaps perish for want of physical aid; and the law, taking no particular notice of such accounts, seemed to leave them much to the discretion of the court.