State v. Bair

• Decision Date: 20 December 1900
• Citation: 84 N.W. 532,112 Iowa 466
• Parties: STATE v. BAIR.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

112 Iowa 466

84 N.W. 532

STATE

v.BAIR.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 20, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Audubon county; N. W. Macy, Judge.

The defendant was accused in the indictment of practicing as an itinerant physician, without first having obtained a license from the state board of medical examiners. The defendant demurred thereto on the ground that certain provisions of the Code with respect to said license are obnoxious to section 6 of article 1 of the constitution of Iowa and the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. The demurrer was sustained, and the defendant discharged. The state appeals. Reversed.Milton Remley, Atty. Gen., for the State.

No appearance for appellee.¹

LADD, J.

Every citizen has the undoubted right to follow any lawful calling, business, or profession he may select, subject only to such restrictions as the government may impose for the welfare and safety of society. This right is one of the distinguishing features of republican institutions. Many of the occupations of life may be followed by persons, irrespective of fitness, without danger to the public health or in detriment to the general welfare. Others demand special knowledge, training, or experience; and the power of the state to prescribe such restrictions and regulations for these as in its judgment shall protect the people from the consequences of ignorance or incapacity, as well as of deception and fraud, has never been questioned. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 122, 9 Sup. Ct. 231, 32 L. Ed. 623;State v. Randolph, 23 Or. 74, 31 Pac. 201, 37 Am. St. Rep. 655, 17 L. R. A. 470. This is especially true with respect to the practice 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.” Nearly every one, of necessity, consults the physician at some period of life, but few are able to judge his qualifications in point of learning and skill. And because of the importance of the interests committed to his care, involving health and life, chapter 17, tit. 12, of the Code was enacted, requiring knowledge and capacity commensurate therewith, and upon which the community may rely. Prior to January 1, 1899, this was to be evidenced in three different ways: (1) By examination before the state board of medical examiners; (2) by a genuine certificate of graduation from a medical school, found by the board to be of good standing; and (3) by a showing that the physician had “been in practice in this state for five consecutive years, three years of which time shall have been in one locality.” Code, § 2579. The nature and extent of these qualifications were primarily for the determination of the legislature. No objection can be urged because of their severity, if appropriate to the profession, and attainable by reasonable study or application. No one is deprived of the right to practice medicine. All that is exacted is that every one who assumes to do so shall be possessed of the requisite knowledge and skill, and that this be evidenced by a certificate of the board designated by the state to ascertain his fitness. In other words, the real test, applicable to all alike, is that of qualification, and this statute relates to the proof to be furnished in order to establish this as a basis for such certificate. The satisfactory character of a diploma from a reputable medical school, and the disclosures of an examination, as such proof, is not questioned; and statutes which, in addition thereto, treat the practice of the profession within the state for a number of years, or the fact of being in practice at the time of their enactment, as sufficient evidence of qualification, have often been upheld, as invulnerable to the charge of discrimination. State v. Randolph, supra; State v. Dent, 25 W. Va. 1; Ex parte Spinney, 10 Nev. 323;Fox v. Territory, 2 Wash. T. 297, 5 Pac. 603;State v. Creditor, 44 Kan. 565, 24 Pac. 346, 21 Am. St. Rep. 306;Gosnell v. State, 52 Ark. 228, 12 S. W. 392;State v. State Medical Examining Board (Minn.) 20 N. W. 238;State v. Vandersluis (Minn.) 43 N. W. 789, 6 L. R. A. 119;State v. Green, 112 Ind. 462, 14 N. E. 352;People v. Phippin (Mich.) 37 N. W. 888.

But section 2579 not only requires practice of medicine in the state for five consecutive years, as prima facie evidence of qualification, but stipulates that three of these shall have been in one locality; and it is asserted that thereby physicians of five-years residence in the state are divided into two classes,--those who have practiced three of the five consecutive years in one...