Case ID: ala_183/html/0116-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ex Parte Smith.
    
      Practicing Medicine Without License.
    
    (Decided June 30, 1913.
    63 South. 70.)
    
      Physicians and Surgeons; Regulation; Constitutionality. — As applied to a mental healer for compensation, section 7560, Code 1907, is not an unconstitutional exercise of the police power.
    Certiorari to Court of Appeals.
    J. J. Smith was convicted of treating diseases without having obtained the certificate required by section 1627, Code 1907, and he appeals to the Court of Appeals, which court affirmed the judgment of the lower court, and he brings certiorari to review such judgment.
    Writ denied.
    The agreed statement of facts will be found in the opinion in the case of Smith v. State, 8 Ala. App. 352. The prosecution was begun by affidavit and warrant, in the language of form 84, section 7161, Code 1907.
    Estes, Jones & Welsh, for appellant.
    Counsel begin by quoting froih Matthew, 9th chapter, verses 20 to 22, Acts, chapter 14, verses 8 to 10, inclusive, and 1 Cor. chapter 12, and assert that the Legislature cannot directly or indirectly interfere with, limit control prohibit or confine to a certain class of citizens the right to exercise God-given skill or science of healing disease, and they cite 187 TJ. S. 9; 135 Fed. 1. It is insisted, therefore, that the statutes under consideration are unconstitutional and void, citing Bragg v. State, 134 Ala. 164; 36 Cyc. 1131; 67 L. R. A. 903; 89 Psalm 30, 82; City Gotoneil of Montgomery v. West, 42 South. 1000.
    R. C. Brickell, Attorney General, and W. L. Martin, Assistant Attorney General, for the State.
    The writ should be denied on the authority of Smith v. State, 8 Ala. App. 52, and authorities there cited.
   PER CURIAM.

— We are of the opinion that the agreed statement of facts brought the appellant within the influence of sections 1627 and 7564 of the Code of 1907, and the certiorari to review the action of the Court of Appeals is denied.

The defendant also seeks a writ of error, as provided by the act of 1911, authorizing a review by this court of the action of the Court of Appeals in upholding the constitutionality of the foregoing statutes. We are of the opinion that the Court of Appeals correctly held that the statute was not violative of the federal or state Constitutions, in so far as it was applicable to this defendant, who practiced his system of healing for a valuable reward.