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.
166 Minn. 496 affirmed.
Page 272 U. S. 426
Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Minnesota which
affirmed the judgment of a municipal court sentencing Graves for
practicing dentistry without a license.
MR. JUSTICE SANFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves a single question relating to the
constitutionality of the Minnesota statute regulating the practice
of dentistry. Gen.Laws, 1889, c.19, and amendments, embodied in
Gen.Stats.1923, §§ 5757-5763.
This statute prohibits the practice of dentistry by persons who
have not been licensed by a board of dental examiners. Every
applicant for a license is required to present himself for
examination by the board and "produce his diploma from some dental
college of good standing," of which the board shall be the judge,
with satisfactory evidence showing his good moral character. The
board shall then give him an examination to test thoroughly his
fitness for practice, and, if he successfully passes this, shall
register him as a licensed dentist.
Graves, the plaintiff in error, had applied for a license, but
had been refused an examination by the board because he had no
diploma from an accredited dental college. He was thereafter
prosecuted in a municipal court for violating the statute by
practicing dentistry without a license. He asserted his fitness to
practice, and interposed a challenge to the constitutional validity
of the statute. This was overruled, and he was found guilty and
sentenced. The judgment was affirmed by the supreme
Page 272 U. S. 427
court of the state, 166 Minn. 496, and the case is brought here
by writ of error on the constitutional question.
The specific contention is that the requirement of the statute
that an applicant for a license must present a diploma from an
approved dental college before he can be examined by the board --
which, in effect, limits the granting of licenses to persons having
diplomas from dental colleges of good standing -- is unreasonable,
arbitrary and discriminatory, and violates the due process clause
and other provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is well settled that 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.
Dent v. West Virginia,
129 U. S. 114,
129 U. S. 122;
Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165,
261 U. S. 167.
In the
Dent case, this Court said:
"The power of the state to provide for the general welfare of
its people authorizes it to prescribe all such regulations as, in
its judgment, will secure or tend to secure them against the
consequences of ignorance and incapacity as well as of deception
and fraud. As one means to this end, it has been the practice of
different states from time immemorial to exact in many pursuits a
certain degree of skill and learning upon which the community may
confidently rely, their possession being generally ascertained upon
an examination of parties by competent persons, or inferred from a
certificate to them in the form of a diploma or license from an
institution established for instruction on the subjects, scientific
and otherwise, with which such pursuits have to deal. The nature
and extent of the qualifications required must depend primarily
upon the judgment of the state as to their necessity."
P.
129 U. S.
122.
In the
Douglas case, which involved the
constitutionality of a statute containing similar provisions to
those of
Page 272 U. S. 428
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.
Clearly the fact that an applicant for a license holds a diploma
from a reputable dental college has a direct and substantial
relation to his qualification to practice dentistry. We cannot say
that the state is acting arbitrarily or unreasonably when, in the
exercise of its judgment, it
Page 272 U. S. 429
determines that the holding of such a diploma is a necessary
qualification for the practice of dentistry, or that the
distinction made in the granting of licenses between applicants who
hold such diplomas and those who do not is a classification which
has no real or substantial basis. And the constitutionality of the
statute must be sustained.
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.
The judgment is
Affirmed.