People v. Ellis

• Decision Date: 08 May 1914
• Citation: 162 A.D. 288,147 N.Y.S. 681
• Parties: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent, v. LEO E. ELLIS, Appellant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

162 A.D. 288

147 N.Y.S. 681

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent, v. LEO E. ELLIS, Appellant.

Supreme Court of New York, Second Department.

May 8, 1914

APPEAL by the defendant, Leo E. Ellis, from a judgment of the Court of Special Sessions of the City of New York, Part II, Kings county, rendered against him on the 29th day of January 1914, convicting him of the crime of practicing medicine without being registered and licensed, in violation of the Public Health Law, and imposing a fine of twenty-five dollars.

COUNSEL

Edmond C. Alger, for the appellant.

Harry G. Anderson, Assistant District Attorney [James C. Cropsey District Attorney, and Hersey Egginton, Assistant District Attorney, with him on the brief], for the respondent.

PUTNAM, J.:

Appellant has been convicted of the misdemeanor of practicing medicine within this State without any license or registration. (Public Health Law [Consol. Laws, chap. 45 Laws of 1909, chap. 49], § 160, subd. 7; Id. § 174.) Mr. Ellis claims to be a chiropractor, or doctor of chiropractics, having graduated from an institution at Davenport, Ia., known as Davenport University of Chiropractics, in June, 1912. In July following, without having any further examination or receiving any license in this State, he began practice in Brooklyn. He has a sign with regular office hours, and as a witness he admitted having treated about 200 persons for ailments of the stomach, chest or spine, also for nervousness, hysteria, and diseases coming from pressure on the nerves. The prosecution proved by a witness whom appellant had treated that appellant first examined her ankle, pronounced the arch as having fallen, massaged the foot and advised a different shoe. On a further visit he manipulated the patient's spine, which, speaking as a spinologist, he pronounced out of alignment in several places. He said he could restore it, but it probably would not stay the first time. He further gave the opinion that the nerves leading to the ankle might be impinged so as to cut off the circulation.

Early statutes regulating physicians used the expression 'practice physic or surgery' (Laws of 1872, chap. 746; Laws of 1880, chap. 513; Laws of 1887, chap. 647, as amd. by Laws of 1890, chap. 500). The present broadened definition of the practice of medicine appears in chapter 344 of the Laws of 1907. 'Medicine,' according to the new Standard Dictionary, is 'The healing art; the science of the preservation of health and of treating disease for the purpose of cure.'

In view of the large increase of those who attempt remedies without drugs or instruments, legislatures in this and other States have found it necessary to deal with all who assume to treat or prescribe for physical ailments. Such regulations are within the State's police power. (Collins v. Texas, 223 U.S. 288.) By our present statute, one practicing medicine is comprehensively defined as a person 'who holds himself out as being able to diagnose, treat, operate or prescribe for any human disease, pain, injury, deformity or physical condition, and who shall either offer or undertake, by any means or method, to diagnose, treat, operate or prescribe for any human disease, pain, injury, deformity or physical condition.' (Public Health Law, § 160, subd. 7.)

Appellant's office sign, his circular and professional card, as well as his own frank admissions as a witness, all show that he holds himself out as able to diagnose, treat and prescribe for pain, disease and injury. Rubbing and pressure on the human joints are old therapeutic agents. When accompanied by such attempts at diagnosis as the statement that a patient's pains in the ankle were from the spine having come...