36-7-1.   Scope of practice defined. The practice of optometry is declared to be a profession and defined as examination of the human eye and its appendages, and the employment of any means for the measurement of the powers of visions, or any visual, muscular, neurological, interpretative, or anatomical anomalies of the visual processes, and the prescribing or employment of lenses, prisms, frames, mountings, visual training procedure, the prescribing or administration, except by injection of pharmaceutical agents rational to the diagnosis and treatment of the human eye and its appendages, and any other means or method for the correction, remedy, or relief of any insufficiencies or abnormal conditions of the visual processes of the human eye and its appendages except surgery. However, an optometrist may remove superficial foreign bodies from the eye. The prescription of contact lenses, except by a practitioner licensed under chapter 36-4, constitutes the practice of optometry. An optometrist is one who practices optometry under the provisions of this chapter.

Source: SDC 1939, § 27.0701; SL 1941, ch 125, § 1; SL 1951, ch 131, § 1; SL 1976, ch 232; SL 1979, ch 253, § 1; SL 1986, ch 306, § 7; SL 1991, ch 303, § 1; SL 1994, ch 296, § 1; SL 2003, ch 201, § 1.

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