The power of a state to make reasonable provisions for determining the qualifications of those engaging in the practice of medicine, of those engagin in the practice of medicine, and punishing those who attempt to engage therein in defiance of such statutory provisions, is not open to question. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 32 L. ed. 623, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 231; Hawker v. New York, 170 U.S. 189, 42 L. ed. 1002, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 573, and cases cited in the opinion; State ex rel. Burroughs v. Webster, 150 Ind. 607, 41 L. R. A. 212, 50 N. E. 750, and cases cited.
It is objected in the present case that the board of registration is given authority to exercise judicial powers without any appeal from its decision, inasmuch as it may refuse a certificate of registration if it shall find that no sufficient proof is presented that the applicant had been 'legally registered under act No. 167 of 1883.' That, it is contended, is the determination of a legal question which no tribunal other than a regularly organized court can be empowered to decide. The decision of the state supreme court is conclusive that the act does not conflict with the state Constitution, and we know of no provision in the Federal Constitution which forbids a state from granting to a tribunal, whether called a court or a board of registration, the final determination of a legal question. Indeed, it not infrequently happens that a full discharge of their duties compels boards, or officers of a purely ministerial character, to consider and determine questions of a legal nature. Due process is not necessarily judicial process. Den ex dem. Murray v. Hoboken Land & Improv. Co. 18 How. 272, 15 L. ed. 372; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 07, 24 L. ed. 616; Ex parte Wall, 107 U.S. 265, 289, 27 L. ed. 552, 562, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 569; Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U.S. 71, 83, ante, 28, 32, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 28, 32; People v. Hasbrouck, 11 Utah, 291, 39 Pac. 918. In the last case this very question was presented, and in the opinion, on page 305, Pac. p. 921, it was said:
'The objection that the statute attempts to confer judicial power on the board is not well founded. Many executive officers, even those who are spoken of as purely ministerial officers, act judicially in the determination of facts in the performance of their official duties; and in so doing they do not exercise 'judicial power,' as that phrase is commonly used, and as it is used in the organic act in conferring judicial power upon specified courts. The powers conferred on the board of medical examiners are nowise different in character in this respect from those exercised by the examiners of candidates to teach in our public schools, or by tax assessors or boards of equalization in determining, for purposes of taxation, the value of property. The ascertainment and determination of qualifications to practise medicine by a board of competent experts, appointed for that purpose, is not the exercise of a power which appropriately belongs to the judicial department of the government.' In Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 28 L. ed. 232, Mr. Justice Matthews, speaking for the court, discussed at some, Length and with citation of many authorities the essential elements of due process of law, and summed up the conclusions in these words (p. 537, L. ed. p. 239 ):
'It follows that any legal proceeding enforced by public authority, whether sanctioned by age and custom, or newly devised in the discretion of the legislative power, in furtherance of the general public good, which regards and preserves these principles of liberty and justice, must be held to be due process of law.'
Neither is the right of appeal essential to due process of law. In nearly every state are statutes giving, in criminal cases of a minor nature, a single trial, without any right of review. For nearly a century trials under the Federal practice for even the gravest offenses ended in the trial court, except in cases where two judges were present and certified a question of law to this court. In civil cases a common rule is that the amount in controversy limits the entire litigation to one court, yet there was never any serious question that in these cases due process of law was granted.
In Pittsburgh, C. C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Backus, 154 U.S. 421, 38 L. ed. 1031, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1114, upon the question whether the right of appeal was essential to the validity of a taxing statute, we said (p. 427, L. ed. p. 1036, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 1117):