Little v. State

• Decision Date: 21 November 1900
• Parties: LITTLE v. STATE.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

60 Neb. 749

84 N.W. 248

LITTLE

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Nov. 21, 1900.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. One who, without complying with the statute establishing a state board of health and prohibiting the practice of “medicine, surgery, and obstetrics” without a license, practices medicine, is liable to the penalty prescribed by such. State v. Buswell, 58 N. W. 728, 40 Neb. 158, 24 L. R. A. 68.

2. In construing statutes effect should be given to the intention of the legislature.

3. One who practices what is known as “osteopathy” without obtaining a certificate from the state board of health is a practitioner of medicine as defined by article 1, c. 55, Comp. St., and is liable to the penalty prescribed specifically for practicing medicine without a license.

4. Section 17, art. 1, c. 55, Comp. St., is within the purview of the title of the act.

5. “Surgery and obstetrics,” as those terms are popularly understood, are embraced in the title of an act to regulate the practice of medicine.

6. The statute is not prohibitive in its effect, but attempts to regulate the practice of the art of healing.

7. Several misdemeanors of the same kind may be set forth in as many counts of an information, and the prosecutor is not required to elect upon which count he will proceed.

Error to district court, Lancaster county; Holmes, Judge.

Charles W. Little was convicted of practicing medicine without a license, and brings error. Affirmed.Abbott, Selleck & Lane, for plaintiff in error.

C. J. Smyth, Atty. Gen., and T. C. Munger, for the State.

NORVAL, C. J.

Charles W. Little comes on error from the district court of Lancaster county, he having been there convicted of practicing medicine without having procured a license, as required by article 1, c. 55, Comp. St. He is what is known as a “practitioner of osteopathy,” the practice of which consists principally in rubbing, pulling, and kneading with the hands and fingers certain portions of the bodies, and flexing and manipulating the limbs, of those afflicted with disease, the object of such treatment being to remove the cause or causes of trouble. He urges a number of errors, the principal contention, however, being that his occupation does not fall within the definition of a practitioner of medicine as found in section 17 of the said article. This court, however, is of the opinion that those who practice osteopathy for compensation come within the purview of the statute as clearly as those who practice what is known as “Christian Science,” and therefore this case falls within the principle of State v. Buswell, 40 Neb. 158, 58 N. W. 728, 24 L. R. A. 68. With the rule announced in that case we are fully satisfied, although it is possible that the decisions of some other courts are in conflict with it. The doctrine declared in that case will carry out the legislative intent, and effect the object of the statute, which is “to protect the afflicted from the pretensions of the ignorant and avaricious, no matter whether the persons pretending to heal bodily or mental ailments do or do not profess to follow beaten paths and established usages.” In construing statutes effect should be given to the intention of the legislature. It is argued that osteopaths do not profess to treat any physical or mental ailment, but that they merely seek to remove the cause of such ailment or disease, and therefore do not come within the definition mentioned. The writer is not deeply versed in the theory of the healing art, but he apprehends that all physicians have the same object in view, namely, the restoring of the patient to sound bodily or mental condition; and, whether they profess to attack the malady or its cause, they are treating the “ailment,” as the word is popularly understood. We can therefore see no good reason why the practice of osteopathy does not fall within the provisions of the statutes under which defendant was prosecuted, as clearly so as do ordinary practitioners,...