Commonwealth v. Houtenbrink

• Decision Date: 30 March 1920
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. HOUTENBRINK.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

235 Mass. 320

126 N.E. 669

COMMONWEALTH

v.HOUTENBRINK.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 30, 1920.

Exceptions from Superior Criminal Court, Suffolk County; John F. Brown, Judge.

Anthony Houtenbrink was convicted of the practice of optometry and medicine without registration and certificate, and he excepts. Exceptions overruled.

Henry P. Fielding, Asst. Dist. Atty., of Dorchester, for the commonwealth.

Arthur E. Reimer, of Boston, for defendant.

RUGG, C. J.

The defendant was convicted on two complaints; one charging the practice of optometry, the other of medicine, without registration and certification as required by the statutes. Confessedly he was not registered or certified so as to be authorized in accordance with the form of the statute to practice optometry or medicine.

There was evidence tending to show that the defendant held himself out as ‘doctor of ophthalmology,’ as examining the eyes of persons who resorted to him for that purpose, that he used an instrument called the ophthalmoscope, through which he looked at the eye, placed a try frame on the nose of the patient in which were inserted successively various lenses, and then fitted glasses, and that he was skilled in the mechanical art of lense making. The defendant in his testimony explained the construction and purposes of an ophthalmoscope and his system of correcting vision by the use of lenses inserted in a try frame adjusted to the patient's eyes and making up glasses from the lenses which the patient decided he could see through, and said that he had applied this method to about two hundred persons within two years of practice. On the defendant's billheads after his name were printed these among other words:

‘Doctor of Ophthalmology (McCormick Medical College, Chicago).’ ‘Nervous Systems Measured and Analyzed. Glasses Fitted for Eye Defects.’

The defendant defined an ophthalmologist as one who had ‘a knowledge of physical optics, the physiology and anatomy of the eye.’ Other definitions were given in testimony as follows:

‘Ophthalmology is that science which deals with the treatment of conditions of the eye,’ including both optometrist and oculist. ‘An oculist and ophthalmologist are practically synonymous terms. * * * The distinction between the optometrist and ophthalmologist or oculist is that the optometrist's work is simply mechanical and his field of correcting vision is limited to cases where said correction can be made with the aid of mechanical instruments only.’

Another witness testified that an optometrist had a knowledge of ‘theoretic as well as practical optics, a knowledge of the construction of the human eye and its nerve supply,’ and that an ophthalmologist ‘deals with the condition of the eye, more particularly as to diseased conditions, as well as practicing optometry.’

The defendant does not contend that he has not violated the terms of St. 1912, c. 700, which purports to regulate the practice of optometry, but that that subject is beyond the power of legislative control and that the statute violates the Constitution both of the United States and of the commonwealth. That statute provides in section 1 that--

‘The practice of optometry is defined to be the employment of any method or means other than the use of drugs for the measurement of the powers of vision and the acaptation of lenses for the aid thereof.’

Sections 2, 3, 4 and 7 relate to the appointment, meetings, records, reports and compensation of a board of registration in optometry. By section 5 provision is made for examination, certification and registration of practitioners in optometry, and by section 8 for the revocation of such certification for designated causes. Every such practitioner is required by section 6 to display conspicuously his certificate in his place of business and to deliver to customers served away from his place of business certain identifying information. Physicians and surgeons lawfully entitled to practice medicine and persons who merely sell spectacles, eyeglasses and lenses on prescription or as merchandise, without practicing optometry, are exempted from the scope of the act by section 10. A penalty is imposed by section 9 for practicing, holding himself out as practicing, or attempting to practice, optometry contrary to the terms of the statute.

It is too well settled to require extended discussion that whatever rationally tends to the promotion and preservation of the public health is within the police power of the state. One means to this end is the examination and certification by a public board of those who profess to treat physical or mental ailments or to cure disease, or who hold themselves out as possessing unusual skill in assuaging any of the ills of the flesh or overcoming defects or deficiencies of any of the main organs of the body. The public thus are protected from being imposed upon by the ignorant or misled by the specious but unqualified.

It has been held in numerous cases that the practice of medicine is subject to reasonable public regulation by the several states under the police power without offending any provision of the federal Constitution. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 9 Sup. Ct. 231, 32 L. Ed. 623;Hawker v. New York, 170 U. S. 189, 18 Sup. Ct. 573, 42 L. Ed. 1002;Reetz v. Michigan, 188 U. S. 505, 23 Sup. Ct. 390, 47 L. Ed....