The Electro Biologist's Malpractice
| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 14 |
August, 2022
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
BY FRANK GIBBARD
Dr. Elma M. Gill was a psychic healer, spiritualist, and clairvoyant who was active in the 1910s and 1920s. Although she bore the tide of "Dr." and claimed a professional affiliation with the "Kosman Spiritualist Institute of Colorado Springs," she was sometimes accused of being nothing more than a fortune-teller and fraud. These accusations sometimes led her into brushes with the law or to being named in civil litigation. The persecution she endured may have contributed to her itinerant lifestyle, which saw her relocate throughout the Western United States and Canada during this period. If Dr. Gill had a home base, it was in Colorado, and it was in this state that an early failed cure landed her in the Colorado Supreme Court.
An Eclectic Psychic and Healer
Dr. Gill claimed many titles over the years. In 1910 in Oakland, California, she billed herself a "trance medium and healer."[1] She was "pastor" of the Unity Spiritual Church in Oakland[2] and was sometimes referred to as the "Rev. Dr. Gill." In Wichita Falls, Texas, she advertised her services as a "spiritualist medium, lecturer and teacher."[3] But it was an unusual title that she used in Colorado, and its disclosure to a jury, that contributed to a principal issue in her Colorado litigation.
The Schneider Case
The Schneider case arose around 1910, near the outset of Dr. Gill's career. Louise Schneider suffered from tumors; it is unclear whether they were benign or malignant.[4] She sought out Dr. Gill for healing. Dr. Gill promised to remove the tumors in three months through nonsurgical means. Schneider agreed to pay her $50 for the first month's treatment and $40 for the second and third months, all in advance. Dr. Gill provided receipts for her payments. Unfortunately, the treatment did not remove or alleviate the tumors, so Schneider turned to a regular doctor, who surgically removed them. Schneider then sued Dr. Gill for the $130 she had paid plus wages she had lost in her occupation as a cook.[5] She won a verdict in her favor in county court, and Dr. Gill appealed the verdict to the Colorado Supreme Court.
On appeal, Dr. Gill presented several issues. She first argued that Schneider was required to elect to proceed on either her theory of breach of contract or for fraud but had failed to specify her cause of action. The Court held that Dr. Gill had waived this argument by failing to present it in the trial court, and in any event, there was no basis for requiring such an election of legal theories in the case.
Dr. Gill next complained about the admission of the first two treatment receipts, which she had written to Schneider on the back of her business cards. The problem was that the jury could also see what was printed on the front side of the cards. The business cards read:
Elma M. Gill
The Electro Biologist Can cure any and all chronic diseases, also remove cancers and tumors without operation or drugs. 217 S. 4th Street. West Colorado Springs.[6]
The Court expressed some confusion about this claim, stating it was "difficult to understand in what particular the defendant claims it was error to admit these cards."[7]The cards represented that Dr. Gill could remove tumors, which was exactly what she had promised Schneider that she would do.
Perhaps Dr. Gill was embarrassed that she had called herself "The Electro Biologist," which in retrospect seems like a title worthy of a carnival act and may have been particularly embarrassing, given her failure to effect a cure in Schneider's case. To be sure, electrobiologyis a legitimate science that studies the production and use of electricity by biological organisms.[8] But Dr. Gill likely used the phrase in its obsolete and somewhat occult sense, referring to a cure effected by "animal magnetism" and hypnotism.[9] In any event, the Court held the business cards were properly admitted into evidence.
The Court also rejected Dr. Gill's objections to some of the jury instructions, finding upon review of all the instructions given that she had failed to establish a reversible error. Finally, the Court declined to review the sufficiency of the evidence, because "the evidence appearing in the abstract is conflicting, and further it appears from the abstract itself that much of the evidence has been omitted."[10] It affirmed the judgment in favor of Schneider.
A Wandering Lecturer
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