Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-03-10
lanrastes tlttcIliqerlcer.
FRIDAY EVENING. MARCH 10. 1881.
Medical Registry and Similar Laws.

FRIDAY EVENING. MARCH 10. 1889.
Medical Registry and Similar Laws.
Lawyers, dentists, doctors and laymen
may read with interest and profit the
opinion Of Judge Wickes, of York, on
the dental diploma act of 1876, to which
learned deliverence we give publication
in full on the first page Of to-day's issue.
Judge Wickes is one of the younger
judges of the state, but he ranks among
the ablest, and he has done credit to him
self and his reputation by this last
opinion. 1t is Of peculiar local interest.
because much that it says against tie
constitutionality of the act-requiring
dentists without diplomas, or who had not
practiced their professions three years
at the time the law was enacted, to get a
diploma from a board authorized by
the act-applies with equal force to the
somewhat notorious medical registry
law of 1851, under which large number
of black mailing prosecutions were
brought for speculative purposes in this
county last fall. 1t will he remembered
that such Of these prosecutions as finally
reached the grand jury came to grief and
the prosecutor was mulcted in the costs,
but had they ever progressed to trial and
had the law under which they were
brought been submitted to intelligent
judicial scrutiny, the INTELLIGENCER
,,,a. q ,r,,,c onnfJoOf that ~, or l,o ia,
clared er post ,facto and therefore uncOn-
stitutional, SO far as related to per-
sons practicing medicine at the time
Of its passage. Not to speak Of
the anomaly of law approved the
7th of June, lsSl," going into effect - on
the first day of June, 1884," the enforce
ment of the law would have worked
that deprivation of Il mans property,
other than by the judgment of his peers
or the law of the land, which the bill Of
rights and the supreme law of the coun-
try declare shall not be done. 1t is very
easy to see in the clear light of Judge
Wickes':' reasoning that the profession
of physician is his property, and
that it is not to be taken away
from him by any such act of the
Legislature as to that defOrmity known
as the medical registry act. The declara-
tion of II Legislature is not necessarily
the law of the land that term hap
PLY means due process of law and it
would be mOnStrouS indeed if the LegiS-
OF cf.lI IISI a
practitioners of a profession the obliga-
tions OF this act, under penalty of its
pains and puniShments for failure to
comply with its requirements. The
medical registry act is awkward, inco.
herrlt and contradictory in its conStruc.
tiun, but in It's main purposes, SO far as
they impose requirements upon phySi.
clans IN practice at the time of its pas
sage, there can he no reasonable doubt
that it falls under the rulings of Judge
Wickes on the dental diploma act. Like
il the medical registry law would Oper
ate t" forfeit the estate of the defend
ant in lis proiession-tO destroy vested
right which lie enjoyed at the time it wa:
passed, and thus deprive him of hi:
property by a process rather ministerial
than judicial. and wholly different from
that which is meant by the judgment OF
his peers or the law Of the land.
The act OF lsol, regulating tlit
doctors, is likewise ec post .fac'o in all til.
characteristics Of that kind of a Law
which Wickes points out. With eIua
force it could be said to persons under
either act:
True, you have spent your time and
money III preparing yourself for this pro
fessrn, and you engaged in the practice
possessed of all the qualifications required
TO satisfy the existing laws and commend
you to the public, but since then We have
discovered that the public welfare requires
that such skill as you profess shall bt
avouchcd by diploma certificate. OF
Iegistrationl, and as you have not got it,
and did not require it, We make this Law
to relate back to the time you began tt
practice, and you must pay the forfeit
the registration feel or abandon youl
occupation, upon which the support OF
your family depends-your act was inno-
cent before this law was passed, but w
make the continuance Of it criminal"
AS the York county court points out
the supreme court of the United State
has declared that it were vain and futil
to say all honors and positions are alik'
open 10 every one and that in the protec
tion of these rights all are equal befor
the law" il. ;" the qualifications for thes
avocations may be added to or change,
time and again, perhaps in the interes
OF some dominant class, until under tn
guisa of the public veal, all opposition
is driven from the field.'
Nor does it save the obnoxious featur
of the ac; in question, that those affecte'
10y il" may register themselves and b.
that act secure the right to practic
medicine which they enjoyed before tn
law was passed, for "J the statute di
not Joyea th.ir rights, there scould be u
necesSity tor q method by ,chich to rein
state hem.' Even though the act "wa
passed entirely in the interest of tn
public, ard will produce tie best prat
tical results it is an invasion of persona
right and forfeiture of property whic
has san effect prohibited by the funda
mental law
The wonder to us has always bee
that the medical profession did not re
sent and resist the operations of this &C
instead of countenancing if not abettin