159 Ind. 211 | Ind. | 1902
— Appellant was prosecuted, by affidavit and information, - for practicing medicine without a license. There were three counts in the affidavit and information. Appellant moved to quash each count thereof, but his motion was overruled, and he excepted. Upon issue joined, a trial was had that resulted in a finding of guilty as charged in each count. Judgment was rendered in accordance with the finding. A motion for a new trial, in con
In Benham v. State, 116 Ind. 112, which was a prosecution for a like offense, the charge was in the same general' form, and it was held sufficient by this court. It was there said, at page 114: “We are of opinion, however, that the indictment in this case is not open to the objection that it does not state the offense charged with sufficient certainty. The offense charged against appellant herein is purely a statutory offense — that is, it was created and defined and its punishment prescribed by the provisions heretofore quoted of the above entitled act of April 11, 1885. In such a case, it has been held by this court, as a general rule, that an indictment or information will be sufficient to withstand a motion to quash, if it charge the offense in the language of the statute, or in terms substantially equivalent thereto. Howard v. State, 87 Ind. 68; State v. Miller, 98 Ind. 70; Bitter v. State, 111 Ind. 324; Trout v. State, 111 Ind. 499. In the case under consideration it is conceded on behalf of appellant that the offense charged is a statutory offense, and that the indictment charges him with such offense substantially in the language of the statute. In Eastman v. State, 109 Ind. 279, the appellant was prosecuted, as we may infer from the opinion of the court, as is the defendant in the ease in hand, for unlawfully practicing medicine without having first procured, from the proper clerk, a license so to do. In the case cited the sufficiency of the charge seems to have been challenged, and, upon this point, the court there said: ‘The offense is charged in the language of the statute, and this is sufficient. State v. Miller, 98 Ind. 70, and cases cited; Graeter v. State, 105 Ind. 271;
It appears from the evidence that at the time in question the appellant practiced magnetic healing, and had done so for eight years prior thereto; that he did not use medicines or surgery; that he held himself out as a magnetic healer, advertised as such, and styled himself “Professor;” that he was not a graduate of any school of medicine, and had no license; that he diagnosed cases entirely by the nerves; that on the 8th day of April, 1901, one Edward Garvey came to him to be treated for a lame ankle; that after examining the ankle appellant diagnosed the case as rheumatism, and proceeded to give treatment, which consisted, at least in so far as there was anything manual about it, in holding the afflicted parts and rubbing them. An
Assuming, for the time being, the validity of the statute, we do not think that any question is presented as to the sufficiency of the second and third counts of the affidavit and information. The rule of the criminal law is that when there is a good count and a bad count, and a general verdict of guilty is returned on which judgment is rendered, it will be presumed on appeal that the judgment was rendered on the good count. Powers v. State, 87 Ind. 97. It is true that the finding affirmatively appears to have been based on each count, but in a case of this kind, where there is one sufficient count, — assuming the validity of the statute, — and that count is established by evidence of a single, substantive transaction, admitted by the appellant, we think that questions as to the sufficiency of other counts of the affidavit and information are moot questions.
The prosecution in this case is based on the act of March 8, 1897 (Acts 1897, p. 255)j and its subsequent amendments. §§7318-7323e Burns 1901. Certain sections of the act of 1897 were amended by an act passed in 1899. Acts-1899, p. 247. By an act passed in 1901, §8 of the original act was amended and certain sections of said amended act of 1897 were in turn amended. Acts 1901, p. 475. The act as it now stands is too long to set out here. It will reasonably suffice to set out that portion of §8 of the act, as amended in 1901, that precedes the provision as to what a charge of violating the act shall contain. Said first portion of the section referred to is as follows: “To open an office for such purpose or to announce to the public in
The act of 1897, as amended in 1899, and as further amended in 1901, must be construed as though the amendments as they now exist had been incorporated in the original statute. Blakemore v. Dolan, 50 Ind. 194; Pomeroy v. Beach, 149 Ind. 511.
The appellant challenges the validity of the amended statute as applied to him. This challenge is based largely on the claim that the amended statute is in conflict with the fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution. That amendment is as follows: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. Ho state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
But the last two clauses of the amendment challenge our attention. These are plain restrictions upon the exercise of arbitrary and capricious power over persons and property, when exercised by the state through any of its agencies. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 25 L. Ed. 676; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 6 Sup. Ct. 1064, 30 L. Ed. 220; Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 9 Sup. Ct. 231, 32 L. Ed. 623; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 18 Sup. Ct. 383, 42 L. Ed. 780. This amendment greatly expanded the power of the federal courts over state legislation, and conferred a like power upon the courts of the state, except in instances where like restraints were already embodied in the constitutions of the states. As to the provision concerning due process of law, it was said by the Supreme Court of the United States, in Holden v. Hardy, supra, at page 389: “This court has never attempted to define with precision the words ‘due process of law,’ nor is it necessary to do so in this case. It is sufficient to say that there are certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the Union may disregard, as that no man shall be condemned in his person or property without due notice and an .opportunity of being heard in his defense.” In Dent v. West Virginia, supra, at page 124, it was said by Mr. Justice Eield, in pronouncing the opinion of the court: “The great purpose of the requirement is to exclude everything that is arbitrary and capricious in legislation affect
The right to contract, as a means of acquiring property, is put on the same footing as the right to property. Holden v. Hardy, supra; Dent v. West Virginia, supra. In the case last cited it was said, at page 121: “It Is undoubtedly the right of every citizen of the United States to follow any lawful calling, business, or profession he may choose, subject only to such restrictions as are imposed upon all persons of like age, sex, and condition. This right may in many respects be considered as a distinguishing feature of our republican institutions. Here all vocations are open to every one on like conditions. All may be pursued as sources of livelihood, some requiring years of study and great learning for their successful prosecution. The interest, or, as it is sometimes termed, the estate acquired in them, that is, the right to continue their prosecution, is often of great value to the possessors, and can not be arbitrarily taken from them, any more than their real or personal property can be thus taken.”
It was not, however, the effect of the last two clauses of the fourteenth amendment to emasculate the just powers of the states. The authority of the state remains so to control the conduct of individuals by reasonable laws as to protect the welfare of the community. As said by Judge Cooley: “Any accurate statement of the theory upon which the police power rests will render it apparent that a proper
The most extensive and pervading power existing in the states, by virtue of their general sovereignty, is the police power. “By the public police and economy,” said Sir William Blackstone, in his commentaries on the laws of England, “I mean the due.regulation and domestic order of the kingdom, whereby the individuals of the state, like the members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behaviour to the rules of propriety, good neighborhood, and good manners, and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations.” 4 Blackstone’s Com. (Wend.), 162. “This power is, and must be from its very nature, incapable of any very exact definition or limitation. Upon it depends the security.of social order, the life and health of the citizen, the comfort of an existence in a thickly populated community, the enjoyment of private and social life, and the beneficial use of property.” Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 62, 21 L. Ed. 394. There are doubtless some rights of a purely personal and private character that their possessor does not siirrender to the whole people by becoming a member of organized society. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 124, 24 L. Ed. 77. But it
Under the law of eminent domain, the owner of property is entitled to compensation when his property is actually taken, and while the distinction between the exercise of this power and that of the police power may sometimes be diffi-' cult to perceive in practice, yet in their leading theories they are broadly differentiated, by reason of the fact that if the imposition of the burden or the control of the privilege can be affirmed as an act done within the scope of the police power, under existing laws, then there is no right of compensation. To that extent must the individual right be subordinated to the public weal. Under this power various burdens are imposed: .Criminals are deprived of their liberty; the implements of crime are destroyed; vice and pauperism are controlled; noxious trades are regulated; nuisances are suppressed; children are required to attend school; the property of infants and persons non compos is placed in the control of others; the construction of buildings in populous neighborhoods is regulated; provision is made for the greater safety of passengers upon railways and steamboats; employers are required to provide safe places in which the work of their employes is to be performed; the hours of work, in employments deleterious to the health, limited; the employment of children in factories
Eor hundreds of years the matter of the conservation of the public health has been a leading matter of police control. If a man holds himself out to the community as a person skilled in the science of healing and on that ground seeks the opportunity to exercise the skill he claims to possess, his business becomes impressed with a public character, and he is therefore subject to reasonable regulation in its prosecution.
This court upheld the medical law as it stood in the year 1897, in State, ex rel., v. Webster, 150 Ind. 607, 41 L. R. A. 212, and the authority of a state, in the exercise of its police power, to pass a reasonable law upon that subject was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 9 Sup. Ct. 231, 32 L. Ed. 623. Upon the authority of these cases, and the many eases decided by the courts of other states, and cited in the case of State, ex rel., v. Webster, supra, we might perhaps without discussion have decided most of the questions involved in this case, but as the statutes upon which the judgments in those cases rest are different from the statute here under consideration, and as the appellant assails said act as an unwarranted invasion of his pursuit of a business
In Dent v. West Virginia, supra, at page 122, it was said: “Eew professions require more careful preparation by one who seeks to enter it than that of medicine. It has. to deal with all those subtle and mysterious influences upon which health and life depend, and requires not only a knowledge of the properties of vegetable and mineral substances, but of the human body in all its complicated parts, and their relation to each other, as well as their influence upon the mind. The physician must be able to detect readily the presence of disease, and prescribe appropriate remedies for its removal. Every one may have occasion to consult him, but comparatively few can judge of the qualifications of learning and skill which he possesses. Reliance must be placed upon the assurance given by his license, issued by an authority competent to judge in that respect, that he possesses the requsite qualifications.”
Counsel for appellant denounce the law in question as “an attempt to determine a question of science, and control the personal conduct of the citizen without regard to his opinion, and in a matter in which the public is in no- wise concerned.” We think, on the contrary, that the matter is one of very considerable concern, and that the legislature is the appropriate tribunal to determine the degree of learning that those who gain a livelihood by seeking to relieve the bodily ailments of others should possess. While it is true that the often quoted definition of police power afforded by Chief Justice Shaw, in Commonwealth v. Alger, 1 Cush. 53, 85, contains the limitation that such laws must be wholesome and reasonable, yet it is evident, as the power to enact laws has been confided to the legislative department, that a very large measure of authority is vested in that department to determine what is reasonable and wholesome in the enactment of statutes under the police power.
Appellant’s counsel particularly objects to the classification that the statute provides for, on the ground that it is unjust and arbitrary. In the exercise of the police power there must needs be a considerable discretion vested in the legislature, whereby some people have rights or suffer burdens that others do not. Nevertheless, if the objection mentioned has any real basis, the statute must be condemned by the courts. As said in Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31, 5 Sup. Ct. 357, 28 L. Ed. 923: “The fourteenth amendment, in declaring that no state ‘shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without d\ie process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,’ undoubtedly intended not only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal protection and security should be given to all, under like circumstances, in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of any one, except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition, and that in the administration of criminal justice no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offenses.”
The statute of a state that deprives any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or that denies to any person within the jurisdiction of the state the equal protection of the laws, can not be upheld on the theory
Of course the point decided in the above case is only illustrative of the proposition that enactments within the domain of the police power may be obnoxious to the federal Constitution by reason of an arbitrary exercise of the power
We do not think that there is involved in this case a question as to the authority of the legislature to discriminate against a particular school of practitioners. We are not judicially advised that magnetic healing, so called, is so far based on coordinated, arranged, and systematized knowledge that it can be termed a science, or that any considerable degree of instruction is a prerequisite to its prosecution, as it is actually practiced by those whose knowledge does not go beyond the manifestation of the phenomena of magnetism. It may have been the judgment of the legislature, in its implied exclusion of appellant, that both the limitations of value that the treatment possessed and the dangers attending it made it wise to confine its use to a body of men in whose hands it would be safer to entrust it, befeause of their education in subjects relevant to its administration.
The legislature, in judging of a matter of this kind, was authorized to give heed to the opinions of scientific men, and, presuming that it did so, it doubtless found substantial reason for the act of exclusion complained of. Judged by such authority, it appears that while the practice of magnetic healing is based on some elements of ascertained knowledge, yet that its prosecution is attended with danger to such a degree that the legislature was justified in its effort to take it out of the hands of empirics.- Thus, J. Gf.
As appellant was without the license provided for by statute, it may be presumed that he was engaged in empiricism, which is defined as a practice of medicine, — using that term in its popular sense, — founded on mere experience, without the aid of science or a knowledge of its principles. The State has by no means denied the right to seek to relieve persons afflicted with rheumatism by the process of manipu
The statute in* question, in its general scope, goes no further than to establish a standard that may be attained by reasonable application, and the means has an appropriate relation to the end. There is plainly, as applied to the case in hand, no arbitrary or unreasonable deprivation of right. In the language of the court in Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 9 Sup. Ct. 231, 32 L. Ed. 623: “The nature and extent of the qualifications required must depend primarily upon the judgment of the state as to their necessity. If they are appropriate to the calling or profession, and attainable by reasonable study or application, no objection to their validity can be raised because of their stringency or difficulty. It is only when they have no relation to such calling or profession, or are unattainable by such reasonable study and application, that they can operate to deprive one of his right to pursue a lawful vocation.”
We will now proceed to consider the elements in the legislative scheme of classification of which complaint is particularly made. The amendment of 1899 provides that the law shall not apply “to ány physician or surgeon who is legally qualified to practice in the state or territory in which he resides, when in actual consultation with a legal practitioner of this State, nor to any physician or surgeon residing on the border of a neighboring state and duly ' authorized to practice under the laws thereof, whose practice extends into the limits of this State. Provided, that such practitioner shall not open an office or appoint a place to meet patients or receive calls within the limits of this State.” The people of the State ought not to be deprived of the opportunity to call in consultation with their own physicians and surgeons eminent and skilful physicians
The lines of employment of the optician and that appellant was pursuing are so diverse as to raise no question as to the power of the legislature to discriminate between them. There is, in this instance, wanting the “like circumstances” necessary to raise any question of arbitrary discrimination. Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, 25 L. Ed. 989; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 5 Sup. Ct. 357, 28 L. Ed. 923; Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, 7 Sup. Ct. 350, 30 L. Ed. 578.
The exception in favor of professional and other nurses might present a question of difficulty if appellant were only charged with an act that might be properly described as nursing, but he is impliedly charged under the first count with a violation of the statute in other particulars, — particularly in the manner in which he held himself out. As said by the supreme court of Illinois in People v. Gordon, 194 Ill. 560, 571, 62 N. E. 858: “We all agree that the objects and purposes of this and similar statutes are to protect the sick and suffering, and the community at large, against the ignorant .and unlearned who hold themselves out as being possessed of peculiar skill in the treatment of disease; from holding themselves out to the world as phy
Appellant’s counsel further objects to a classification that excludes appellant from following his business, while it permits the granting of licenses to practice osteopathy. Osteopathy is defined by the Annual Encyclopaedia for 1900, page 554, as “A method of treating diseases of the human body without the use of drugs, by means of manipulations applied to various nerve centers, chiefly those along the spine, with a view to inducing free circulation of the blood and lymph, and an equal distribution of the nerve forces. Special attention is given to the readjustment of any bones, muscles, or ligaments not in the normal position.” The encyclopaedia names some seven osteopathic colleges, and states that the prescribed course of study covers a period of four terms, of five months each, and that the curriculum includes, in addition to the theory of clinical demonstration of osteopathy, demonstrative and descriptive anatomy, histology, chemistry, physiology, hygiene, pathology, physiological psychology, dietetics, obstetrics, and minor -surgery. The classification under consideration seems to be based on mental competency, and is far from arbitrary; We think, therefore, that this objection is without merit.
Appellant’s counsel further contends that the section of the statute of 1901 that we have quoted is invalid for the want of a sufficient title. Section 19 of article 4 of the
It is not required that the title to an act should be an epitome of the act. It is the “subject” of the apt, and not the “matters properly connected therewith,” that the Constitution requires to be “expressed in the title.” As stated by Fraser, J., in Hingle v. State, 21 Ind. 28, 32: “The mischiefs intended to be prevented by the section were two: Eirst, the passage of any act under a false and delusive title, which did not indicate the subject-matter contained in the act, — a trick by which members of the legislature had been deceived into the support of measures in ignorance of their true character. Second, the combining together in one act of two or more subjects, having no relation to each other, —a method by which members, in order to procure such legislation as they wished, were often constrained to support and pass other measures obnoxious to them, and possessing no intrinsic merit.” The subject of the act in question may be said to be a regulation of the practice of medicine, surgery, and obstetrics. Is this subject sufficiently definite to authorize the enactment in question? It seems to us that the matters mentioned in said amendatory section are, at least, for the most part, matters properly connected with the subject stated. It'was certainly competent for the legis
It is only necessary to determine whether the appellant has brought himself within the statutory definition of the practice of medicine, in so far as the acts therein mentioned can be said, in a substantial sense, to amount to practicing medicine. The term “practice of medicine” is, at least in its popular sense, generic in its character. People v. Blue Mountain Joe, 129 Ill. 370, 21 N. E. 923; People v. Gordon, 194 Ill. 560, 62 N. E. 858; Little v. State, 60 Neb. 749, 753, 84 N. W. 248, 51 L. R. A. 717; State, ex rel., v. Lee (La. Sup.), 31 South. 14. This court has announced that it is its disposition, in the enforcement of the constitutional mandate under consideration, not to embarrass the legislature by unnecessary strictness in the enforcement of the requirement. State v. Gerhardt, 145 Ind. 439, 33 L. R. A. 313, and cases there cited. In the case of In re Campbell, 197 Pa. St. 581, 588, 47 Atl. 860, it was said: “The purpose of the act is indicated in the phrase To regulate the practice of medicine and surgery.’ This gives notice to any one desiring to enter the practice, that its provisions do or may concern him. Eothing more is required.”
It is our conclusion that appellant was engaged in the practice of medicine, since he held himself out as a magnetic healer, and his method of treatment was, at least in part, the method that medical practitioners sometimes employ.
If it was competent for the legislature to-have enacted the amendment of 1901 as a part of the act of 1897, it is immaterial whether the acts on which appellant’s conviction was based were or were not a violation of law in the interim. As the act of 1901 is now a part of the law of 1897, it follows that appellant was properly convicted.
We find no available error. The judgment is affirmed.