10 Ga. 570 | Ga. | 1851
By the Court.
delivering the opinion.
So the 2d section makes it highly penal for any one to practise physic or surgery, or in any manner prescribe for the cure of diseases, for fee or reward, without a license. Nor does Dr. Coyle come within the exception made by the Act of 1825. That exception extends to persons who, at the time of the passage of the Act, were practitioners of medicine or surgery, or who had, before that time, been practising physicians. I stated that the Act of 1825 was repealed in 1836, and revived in 1839. The reviving Act of 18.39, has this provision, to wit: “ Provided, that nothing in the said revived Act, be so construed as to operate against the Thomsonian or Botanic practice, or any other practitioner of medicine in this State.” Now, it was claimed in the argument, that Dr. Coyle was protected under this proviso, because in its terms it exempts from the operation of the Act of 1825, any other practitioners of medicine, as well as the Thomsonian or Botanic practitioners. The argument construes these words to embrace all practitioners of medicine, and inasmuch as Dr. Coyle is a practitioner of medicine, he is excluded. This construction would defeat the whole body of the Act, and let all the world practise medicine for fee and reward, without a license — the very thing the Act was intended to prevent. If this is the meaning of the proviso, then it is itself void, for a saving repugnant to the whole body of an Act is void. But it is not necessary to make it void. We give to it a meaning, and that no doubt is the meaning suggested by the counsel for the defendant in error, Mr. Harris, to wit: it means to except such persons as were, in 1839, in the practice of medicine, and who came into the practice between 1836 and 1839, whilst the Act of 1825 was repealed — persons who were then practitioners of medicine for fee and reward, and who began to practise when there was no law to prohibit them. Dr. Coyle was not one of these. And if hpdropathy could,] even by the ingenuity of our
The Court properly left the question, whether the charge for board should be allowed, to the Jury, under the testimony.
Let the judgment be affirmed.