Court Opinion

ID: 9866675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 13:33:42.855377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:19.712217
License: Public Domain

Cullen, Ch. J.
I vote for the affirmance of the order appealed from on the ground that by the act of the legislature regulating the practice of medicine in this state (Laws 1897, ch. 344) a licensed osteopath is a physician, and that by section 160 of the Sanitary Code every physician in the city of Hew York is required to register his name and address. To *141this extent I concur in the opinion of my brother Vann. The sole command of the writ, the issue of which is directed in this case, is to register the name and address of the relator.
I express no opinion, however, on the propriety or necessity of according the same force and effect to the certificate of an osteopath as is given to the certificates of those physicians whose right to practice is, under the statute, unlimited. The function of a coroner’s inquest is to investigate the cause of death where there are reasonable grounds for suspicion that it has been occasioned by crime or violence. (Code Grim. Pro. sec. 773.) One purpose and a chief purpose of accepting a physician’s certificate as evidence of the cause of death is doubtless to exclude suspicion of crime. Where death is caused by criminal means it usually occurs through external violence or from poison. The osteopath is precluded by the law from practicing surgery or administering drtigs, presumably for the reason that his education does not qualify him to practice where either drugs or surgery may be necessary. I am, therefore, not prepared to sáy that the board of health might not properly require that a certificate of death, which would exclude from the cause thereof either wounds or poison, be made by a physician who is competent to judge of such matters. It is sufficient for the disposition of this case to say that the Sanitary Code now in force draws no distinction between the two classes of physicians, but I think we should not intimate that the Sanitary Code may not properly be amended in this respect.
Edward T. Bartlett, Werner, Hiscook and Chase, JJ., concur with Vann, J.; Cullen, Ch. J., concurs, in opinion, with whom Haight, J., concurs.
Orders affirmed.