Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/272/425/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:36:17+00:00

Document:
1. The requirement of Minnesota Gen.Stats.1923, §§ 5757-5763, that every applicant for a license to practice dentistry shall produce before the board of dental examiners "his diploma from some dental college of good standing," of which the board shall be the judge, does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 272 U. S. 426.
2. A state may, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, prescribe that only persons possessing the reasonably necessary qualifications of learning and skill shall practice medicine or dentistry. P. 272 U. S. 427.
3. The state is primarily the judge of regulations required in the interest of public safety and welfare, and its police statutes may be declared unconstitutional only where they are arbitrary or unreasonable. P. 272 U. S. 428.
P. 129 U. S. 122.
the Minnesota statute, the validity of the provision that only persons having diplomas from a dental college should be eligible to examination for a license to practice dentistry, although not directly involved, was distinctly implied. The specific objection there was that the statute did not state in terms the scope and character of the examination to be made by the board of examiners, and therefore conferred upon it arbitrary power to grant or withhold licenses. But, in answering this contention, this Court said that the provision that the applicant must be a graduate of a reputable dental school and of good moral character clearly indicated "the general standard of fitness and the character and scope of the examination," and the constitutionality of the statute was sustained. P. 261 U. S. 169.
By enacting the present statute, the state has determined, through its legislative body, that to safeguard properly the public health it is necessary that no one be licensed to practice dentistry who does not hold a diploma from a dental college of good standing. That determination must be given great weight. Every presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 123 U. S. 661. And the case is to be considered in the light of the principle that the state is primarily the judge of regulations required in the interest of public safety and welfare, and its police statutes may only be declared unconstitutional where they are arbitrary or unreasonable attempts to exercise the authority vested in it in the public interest. Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Clara City, 246 U. S. 434, 246 U. S. 439; Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 268 U. S. 668.
This conclusion is in harmony with the decisions in other state courts involving the constitutional validity of statutes regulating the practice of medicine or dentistry which contain similar or analogous provisions, as well as with the earlier Minnesota decisions. In re Thompson, 36 Wash. 377; State v. Creditor, 44 Kan. 565; State v. Green, 112 Ind. 462; People v. Phippin, 70 Mich. 6; Ex parte Spinney, 10 Nev. 323; State v. Vandersluis, 42 Minn. 129; State v. Graves, 161 Minn. 422. And see Hewitt v. Charier, 16 Pick. (Mass.) 353; Ex parte Whitley, 144 Cal. 167; Wert v. Clutter, 37 Ohio St. 347; Timmerman v. Morrison, 14 Johns. (N.Y.) 369. And it is not in conflict with the decisions in Smith v. Texas, 233 U. S. 630, and State v. Walker, 48 Wash. 8, on which the plaintiff in error relies, which dealt with statutes attaching unreasonable and arbitrary requirements to the pursuit of the employments or trades of locomotive engineers and barbers. These manifestly involve very different considerations from those relating to such professions as dentistry requiring a high degree of scientific learning.

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