Case Name: David Evans vs. State Board of Health
Court: Supreme Court of Rhode Island
Jurisdiction: Rhode Island
Decision Date: 1895-12-09
Citations: 19 R.I. 312
Docket Number: 
Parties: David Evans vs. State Board of Health.
Judges: 
Reporter: Rhode Island Reports
Volume: 19
Pages: 312–313

Head Matter:
David Evans vs. State Board of Health.
A physician domiciled in another State in which he has his regular office, but who for the past ten years has visited a city in this State at stated times each month in his practice as a specialist, having no office here other than his rooms in the hotels he has stopped at where he met his patients, and who, during the ten years, has been in the habit of visiting in the practice of his specialty several other cities in the State of his domicil in the same manner, is an itinerant doctor within the meaning of Pub. Laws, R. I. cap. 1858, § 4, of May 16, 1895.
Appeal from the decision of the State Board of Health.
December 9, 1895.

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
The appellant is a domiciled resident of Boston, Mass., and a practicing physician making a specialty of the treatment of catarrh. His main or regular office is in Boston, and for ten years past, except when absent from the country or prevented by illness, he has visited Providence in the practice of his specialty on stated days each month. He has had no office in Providence except the rooms he has taken in the hotels at which he has stopped. He has notified his patients of his visits to Providence by advertisements in the Providence Journal, and has met them in his rooms at the hotels at the times mentioned in the advertisements. He has also during this ten years, for greater or less periods, been in the habit of visiting, in the practice of his specialty, Worcester, Springfield, New Bedford, and Lowell, Mass., in the same manner as he has visited Providence.
Charles E. Gorman, for appellant.
On these facts the State Board of Health decided that he was to be regarded as an itinerant doctor within the meaning of Pub. Laws B. I. cap. 1353, § 4, of May 16, 1895, which provides that -"Nothing in this chapter shall be so construed as to authorize any itinerant doctor to register or to practice medicine in any part of this state." We think that this decision was correct, and affirm it accordingly.