Thе plaintiffs in these suits are Arthur F. March, Junior, a registered optometrist practising in Concord, and Massachusetts Society of Optometrists, a corporation with a membership of more than 500 registered optometrists comprising approximately seventy-five percent of the registered optometrists practising in Massachusetts. The defendant in one case is James H. Waddick, Junior, a registered optician, but not a registered optometrist, physician or surgeon, doing business in Boston under the name Dispensing Contact Lens Center for Fitting and Information. The defendants in the other case are George Hatfield, Junior, also a registered optician, but not a registered optometrist, physician or surgeоn, doing business in Boston under the name “Vent-Air Contact Lens Specialists,” and New England Contact Lens Specialists Corp., a corporation with a usual place of business at the same address as that of the codefendant. There is no record of service on the corporate defendant. Except for references to this defendant in the Hatfield case the bills of complaint in the two cases are the same. In each it is alleged that the defendant is engaged in the unlawful practice of optometry by prescribing and adapting contаct lenses for the correction, relief and aid of the visual functions and that his activity constitutes a nuisance which endangers the public and threatens it with substantial and irreparable harm. This activity does substantial and irreparable harm to the plaintiffs “by interfering with their advantageous relationships with the general public and diminishing the reputation of registered optometrists, including the . . . [plaintiffs] with the general public.” It is also allegеd that the defendant publishes in newspapers of wide circulation and in circulars advertisements including the statements “Call or come in for free information,” “Lifetime prescription changes at no charge,” and other statements of like import, in violation of G. L. c. 112, § 73A.
*583 Each defеndant demurred on the grounds that the bill stated no cause of action entitling the plaintiffs to relief and that they had no standing to maintain the suit. The demurrers were sustained and the cases reported to this court.
The question for decision is whether registered optometrists are entitled, eithеr individually or collectively without proof of special damage, to an injunction against the illegal practice of optomеtry by persons who are not registered and are not physicians or surgeons. Although we entertained a similar bill in
McMurdo
v.
Getter,
Courts have differed widely in dealing with the right to equitable relief of persons holding licenses similar in character to those possessed by the plaintiffs. See Callmann, Unfair Competition and Trade-Marks (2d ed.) § 63.3; 11 So. Cal. L. Rev. p. 476; 32 Notre Dame Lawyer, p. 311. Injunctions have been granted on the theory that by the unlicensed practice of a defendant a property right of the plaintiff has been invaded, or that the activity of the dеfendant constitutes a public nuisance. See
Eisensmith
v.
Buhl Optical Co.
The objеct of our statutes, G. L. c. 112, §§ 66-73B, as amended, wherein the practice of optometry is defined and the practice restricted to thosе found properly qualified after examination by the board of registration in optometry (see G. L. c. 13, § 16) is to promote public health and wеlfare by protecting from improper treatment persons suffering from defects of the eye.
Commonwealth
v.
Houtenbrink,
Their justification, similarly to that for the statute limiting thе right to practise law to members of the bar (G. L. c. 221, § 46A), is not in the protection of the registrants from competition, but in the protection of the public from being advised and represented by incompetent and unreliable persons. See
Lowell Bar Assn.
v.
Loeb,
The provisions respecting the right to prаctise optometry do not suggest a legislative purpose to confer on registrants having such right an additional right to restrain the unauthorized рractice by others. Presumably a right of this nature would, if intended to be given, have been specifically granted as was done in the case оf persons affected by retail sales made at less than cost with intent to injure competitors or destroy competition. G. L. c. 93, § 14H. See
Fournier
v.
Troianello,
*585
In the absence of statutory authority the right of the plaintiffs to maintain these suits depends on whether the allegations bring them within the jurisdiction of equity. The аssertion that the activity of the defendants does substantial and irreparable harm to the plaintiffs by interfering with their advantageous relationshiрs with the general public and diminishing the reputation of registered optometrists, including the plaintiffs, with the general public is a mere conclusion.
Laughlin Filter Corp.
v.
Bird Mach. Co.
The allegаtions that the activities of the defendants constitute a nuisance which endangers the public and threatens it with substantial and irreparable harm purport to be made in the public interest and state reasons for the enforcement of the criminal statutes pertaining to the illegal practice of optometry and the imposition of the substantial penalties provided by §§ 72A and 73A. It is plain that, so far as preventing harm to the public is concerned, the object of these suits is to enforce these penal statutes by injunction. This we have held is not within the jurisdiction оf equity.
Commonwealth
v.
Stratton Fin. Co.
The objections to so called “criminal equity” are stated in
Commonwealth
v.
Stratton Fin. Co.
at p. 474, and need not be repeated. The remedy by criminal prosecution is said to be complete. The right of the plaintiffs to maintain their suits is not enhanced by calling the illegal practice of the defendants a nuisance. If it were such, which we do not intimate (see
Commonwealth
v.
Stratton Fin. Co., supra,
p. 473), the Attorney General is the proper person to pro
*586
cure its abatement.
Dartmouth
v.
Silva,
Orders sustaining the demurrers affirmed.