State v. Heath

• Decision Date: 17 November 1904
• Citation: 101 N.W. 429,125 Iowa 585
• Parties: STATE OF IOWA, Appellant, v. G. H. HEATH
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

101 N.W. 429

125 Iowa 585

STATE OF IOWA, Appellant, v. G. H. HEATH

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

November 17, 1904

Appeal from Boone District Court.--HON. W. D. EVANS, Judge.

THE defendant was accused in the indictment of the crime of practicing medicine without having obtained a certificate entitling him so to do. On the trial it was stipulated that the defendant engaged rooms and advertised as follows:

Cancer Specialist and Magnetic Treatments. Dr. G. H. Heath cures Abscess, Anchylosis, Apoplexy, Asthma, All eye troubles Brain fever, Bright's Disease, Bronchitis, Cancer Catarrh (nasal, throat and stomach), Chills, Colds Constipation, Croup, Curvature of the Spine, Deafness, Diabetes, Diphtheria, Dizziness, Dropsy, Dyspepsia, Earache, Eczema, Epilepsy, Erysipelas, Exhaustion, Fainting, All Female troubles, Bilious, Hay, Malaria and Typhoid fever, Fistula, Fits, Gallstones, Goiter, Gout, Gravel, Headache, Heartburn, Heart trouble, Hernia, Hip-Joint disease, Hoarseness, Hysteria, Indigestion, Influenza, Insomnia, Jaundice, Kidney trouble, La Grippe, Liver trouble, Lockjaw, Lumbago, Milk Leg, Nausea, Nervous Prostration, Neuralgia of Head or stomach, Palpitation, Paralysis, Peritonitis, Piles, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Rheumatism (Acute, Inflammatory, or Sciatica), Scrofula, Stiff neck and Joints, Stomach trouble, Stricture, Tumors, Varicocele, Wens, White Swellings, and all chronic diseases successfully treated, Bain Block, corner Story and Tenth Streets. New 'Phone, 468. Mrs. Ida M. Anderson and Mrs. Seymour Heath Mental Healers and Teachers' Class. Individual and absent work in mental science, the art of attracting Opulence and scientific Auto-suggestion. We teach self-healing and how to make weak constitutions strong. Health, Magnetism, talent genius for business or any profession developed by our treatment and influence--present or absent. Development along Psychic and Occult lines a specialty. Bain Block, corner Story and Tenth Streets. New 'Phone, 468.

He came to Boone to treat people, and had patients call on him for consultation. His method was by what is known as "magnetic treatment," but he did not in fact treat any person in Boone county as a doctor or physician or osteopath, and did not receive any compensation for treatment to be had in the future. Should he have had patients, he expected compensation for treatment, though he never pretended to use any medicines or drugs, or resort to surgery in any form. Upon this showing, together with an admission that defendant had never obtained a certificate from the State Board of Medical Examiners, the court, on motion, directed a verdict of acquittal, and judgment was entered accordingly. The State appeals.

Reversed.

Charles W. Mullan, Attorney General, and L. De Graff, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.

J. L. Carney, for appellee.

LADD J. WEAVER, J., concurring.

OPINION

LADD, J.

Certain penalties are denounced by section 2580 of the Code against those who shall practice medicine, surgery, or obstetrics in this State without first having obtained and filed for record the certificate required by the chapter of which that section forms a part. Section 2579 defines who shall be deemed to be practicing medicine as follows: "Any person shall be held as practicing medicine, surgery or obstetrics, or to be a physician, within the meaning of the chapter, who shall publicly profess to be a physician, surgeon or obstetrician, and assume the duties, or who shall make a practice of prescribing or of prescribing and furnishing medicine for the sick, or who shall publicly profess to cure or heal. " Appellee argues that either the "or" preceding the last clause should be construed as "and," so that, to be a practitioner of medicine, one must not only profess to cure or heal, but also "make a practice of prescribing or prescribing and furnishing medicine for the sick," or else that the clauses subsequent to "assume the duties" should be treated as enumerated in the alternative, so that one, to be a practitioner, "shall profess to be a physician, surgeon or obstetrician," and also "shall publicly profess to cure or heal." But neither suggestion is in harmony with the natural or grammatical construction of the language employed. The repetition of the word "who," which manifestly refers to "any person," precludes the thought contended for. Had the subsequent clauses been intended as in the alternative with "assume the duties," "who shall," in each, would have been omitted. The manifest intention of the Legislature was to divide those who shall be deemed practicing medicine into three classes: (1) all "who shall profess to be a physician, surgeon or obstetrician and assume the duties"; (2) those "who shall make a practice of prescribing or prescribing and furnishing medicine for the sick"; and (3) those "who shall publicly profess to cure or heal."

It is doubtless true that a mere public profession of an ability to heal would not subject any one to the penalties of the law. Such profession must be made under such circumstances as to indicate that it is made with a view of undertaking to cure the afflicted. One publicly professes, in announcing to the public generally his claim of skill in the art of healing and is guilty, under section 2580 of the Code, if, without a certificate, and not within the statutory exceptions, this is done with the purpose of treating the maladies of patients who may engage his attention. There is some reason for not...