At Chambers.
delivered the opinion.
The complainant herein is held by the sheriff of Missoula county under an order of the health officer of the city and county of Missoula made under the quarantine regulations established by the state board of health, under Chapter 106 of the laws of the sixteenth legislative assembly, on the ground that, according to the information of the health officer, she is affected with gonorrhea, a disease declared by the statute to be contagious, communicable, and, therefore, dangerous to the public health. She has applied to me for a writ of habeas corpus to obtain her release on the grounds: (1) That she was not granted a judicial hearing prior to the time she was taken and detained by the sheriff; and (2) that the facts do not exist showing that she is affected with the disease and so conducts herself as to be dangerous to the public health.
1. Counsel have presented briefs in support of their several contentions, but I shall not undertake to enter here upon an [1] examination of the numerous decisions cited by them. There is, perhaps, no authority to be found at this late day which denies that the legislature, under its police power, may enact laws authorizing the establishment of quarantine regulations and requiring the detention of persons affected with contagious diseases dangerous to the public health without resort
The facts introduced at the hearing established clearly that [4] the complainant is affected with gonorrhea. This was ascertained by scientific means by the -bacteriologist employed by the state board of health upon the application of the health officer of Missoula county. The only uncertainty I encounter upon the whole case is whether the complainant, in her present condition, would, in fact, be dangerous to the health of the community in which she lives if she were allowed to go at large. The testimony is not satisfactory, but it does disclose circumstances which justify the inference that the complainant, within a comparatively short time prior to her arrest, had been plying her trade of prostitute; that at one time during the past year she was found by the police occupying the same bed with a man other than her husband at a place which bears ill repute; that she has been found in the same place at other times since; that she has been a constant associate of other prostitutes; and that she has recently been found upon the streets of the city of Missoula at all times of the night at places where women not engaged in prostitution would not under any circumstances be found. Upon this evidence I am constrained to the conclusion that the health officer was justified in directing her detention until she shall become cured or until she may be safely allowed to go at large.
I therefore discharge the writ and remand the complainant to the custody of the sheriff, to be held by him until she may be released according to law.