People v. Ryan

BARNARD, P. J.—

The defendant was charged with attempted grand theft, and found guilty by a jury. His application for probation was granted but he appeals from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The defendant is a chiropractor, and also a graduate laboratory technician. Pursuant to an arrangement with agents of the State Board of Health and the district attorney’s office, a nurse called the defendant on the phone and asked him

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to come to see her father who was suffering from a cancer and who had been told that he had only five or six months to live. The defendant asked where the cancer was located and was told it was in the stomach. The next day the defendant came to the home of a Mr. Read, who had the cancer, and was introduced to Mr. Read as the nurse’s father and to an inspector for the Pood and Drug Bureau as her brother-in-law. Neither man was, in fact, related to the nurse. An investigator for the district attorney’s office, who was also in the house, took down the conversations in shorthand and on a wire recorder.

The defendant examined Mr. Read’s eyes, using an instrument connected to an electric outlet, but made no other examination. He announced that Mr. Read had a cancer in the stomach which had spread into the kidneys or liver, and that he knew this because he saw it in the patient’s eyes. He repeatedly and positively stated that he could cure this cancer. He told them that his treatment consisted of a salve to be applied externally; that the treatment was not recognized by the American Medical Association; that this salve brought internal cancer to the surface; that the salve would be applied over the patient’s abdomen and applied daily for a period of several months; that within a few days the salve would produce a running sore and would cause great pain; that the patient could either bear the pain or obtain opiates, if he was able to do so; that the running sore would create a foul odor, which was the cancer coming out; that Mr. Read would have 40 or 50 small holes in his stomach, through which the cancer would exude; that the exudation would gradually lessen; and that the salve should be applied as long as there was 11 one tiny hole. ’ ’ He told them that the salve for internal cancer was different from the one he used for external cancer. He showed them a jar of the salve he proposed to use and told them he made it from a secret formula which had been handed down to him by his grandfather, who had been a doctor in Texas; that the salve contained herbs, olive oil, wax and oil of croton; that it was impossible to analyze it chemically ; that it contained three elements which were very necessary, and the best chemist in the world could not tell what they were; that the ingredients were very expensive; and that if the salve was applied as he had described the cancer would be drawn out and the patient would be cured. He told them "that he had successfully treated internal cancers on other