Changes

In June 1869, the Eclectic Medical Society of the State of New York As states adopted medical licensing and registration laws during the Reformed Medical Association 1870s, Irregular physicians faced a dilemma. Irregulars understood that Regulars originally advocated on behalf of the United States organized a committee to explore holding a nationwide convention for “Physicians belonging licensing as way to eliminate Irregulars, but many of them agreed with the New School overall goals of Medicinelicensing.” After contacting various state The proliferation of unqualified medical societies practitioners concerned many Homeopaths and eclectic medical colleges, the New York committee proposed holding a convention in Chicago, Illinois in 1870Eclectics. In the fall of 1870, eclectic physicians from throughout the country descended upon Chicago in order to create a national organizationEclectics were especially apprehensive because fraudulent doctors often passed themselves off as Eclectics. Prof. R.S. Newton, a New York physician, informed his audience that “persons connected with the different branches of the profession” hoped their meeting would fail, but he asked This further marginalized the attending doctors to let “nothing but harmony weakest and peace prevailsmallest major medical sect.” While Newton’s congregation was quite small, he sought to create an organization Eclectics were disquieted that Eclecticism’s affiliation with outright frauds could represent the interests of an estimated ten thousand American eclectic physicians These undermine their standing as physicians voted to create a new national organization, the National Eclectic Medical Association (NEMA).

For the rest Unlike Homeopaths, Eclectics did not practice a unified system of medicine. Eclectics were composed of a mixture of the Nineteenth Centurylonely local practitioners, botanic physicians, reformed Regulars, NEMA grappled with and graduates of Eclectic medical schools. The very name “Eclectics” accurately described the growing wave differing medical practices of states passing medical licensing statutesits members. Unlike Sometimes, Eclectics in the American National Eclectic Medical Association, (NEMA response ) did not even appear to medical regulation was hampered its membership’s disagreement over agree on who was an eclectic a legitimate Eclectic physician and their widely divergent views on medical regulation. The debate over medical regulation exposed the fissures within the eclectic community. The older physicians who had cobbled together ThomonsoniansWhile, disgruntled regulars and Homeopaths could draw on their unified medical reformers system to birth eclectic medicine in 1830s and 1840s were were assemble a discordant group more coherent and predisposed coordinated approach to oppose any type governmental regulationmedical licensing. These Eclectics lacked this cohesion when medical reformers had fought hard to eliminate licensing became a defining issue. Homeopaths demonstrated their unity and influence when they effectively blocked medical regulation licensing in the first of half two of their strongholds, New York and Massachusetts, until the century1890s. Regulations that had discriminated marginalized <ref> Martin Kaufman, Homeopathy in America: The Rise and limited Fall of a Medical Heresy, (Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), 145. </ref> Homeopaths’ influence was derived not only from their practice rightslarger numbers but also the nature of their patients. They viewed regulars with suspicion Urban and distrusted wealthy Homeopathic patients helped their physicians lobby in state legislatures on their motives behalf. In contrast, Eclectics were in advocating for medical licensingmore precarious position. Younger physicians, many trained by While they lacked the original innovatorspower to block legislation, were not as hostile they worked with Regulars and Homeopaths to help craft potentially beneficial medical regulationlicensing laws. Unlike their older colleagues many of them were Many Eclectics understood that medical school graduates and they had little licensing could improve Eclecticism’s standing in common with the illiterate Thomsonnians medical community by eliminating frauds who had aligned themselves with hid under their teachers in opposition to medical regulationmoniker. These younger eclectics were concerned Eclectics faced a stark choice: cooperate with legitimizing eclecticism than in expanding its definition Regulars to draft helpful licensing or attempt to include uneducated block licensing and marginal medical practitionersrisk further marginalization. In order Eclectics were increasingly torn on how to legitimize eclecticism the second generation of eclectic physicians believed that they had to purge their uneducated colleagues. Instead of fighting regulation, they worked proceed with regulars to pass nonpartisan legislationmedical licensing.

Even though Homeopaths had more influence in state legislatures than Eclectics, they were faced with many of the same choices. In states where Homeopaths could kill licensing, they did, but in most states they were forced to compromise with Regulars on licensing. In 1884many ways, the debate within Eclecticism mirrored the debate in Homeopathy, but the Eclectic debate is noteworthy because leaders within the movement publicly attacked each other in their battle over licensing. The passage and implementation of the Illinois Medical Practice Act created a major rift in the leadership of the National Eclectic Medical Association over the issue of medical licensing exposed these rifts in eclectic medicine. Two of their most respected While many Eclectic physicians attacked each were concerned with licensing in other mercilessly states, in Illinois the Eclectics worked with Regulars to create the Illinois Board of Health and establish medical licensing in an effort the state. Eclectics also served on the joint mixed State of Board of Health. Dr. Anson Clark was not only the Eclectic representative on the Illinois Board of Health, but the editor of a leading Chicago Eclectic journal and a future president of NEMA. The willingness of Illinois’ Eclectics such as Clark to shape NEMA’s policyalign themselves with the state’s Regular physicians rankled the older members of NEMA. This heated debate created confusion These older members were much less willing to cooperate with Regulars on either regulation or public health then younger physicians such as Clark. Clark’s actions angered many of the older members because he openly advocated for a unified medical board instead of establishing separate boards for each of the sects. NEMA had focused on combating the new wave of licensing that began in the 1860s. Throughout that decade, unsuccessful licensing bills popped up all over the country. During the 1866-67 legislative session, for example, a bill was introduced that would require physicians to be examined by the Ohio State Medical Society and spawned an awkward be graduates of a medical school. Ohio was the heart of Eclectic medicine, and ambiguous policy towards this bill represented a serious challenge to Eclecticism.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1869-70</i> (1872): 13, http://books.google.com/ebooks </ref> It became increasingly clear to organized Eclectics that they would have to combat potentially hostile legislation across the country. The wave of medical regulationlicensing laws in the 1870s demonstrated that their concern was legitimate. Instead However, it was the passage and implementation of presenting the Illinois Medical Practice Act that forced open a united front crack in NEMA’s leadership and crafting a coherent policyled to an ongoing debate over licensing within the group for the next decade. The passage of the Illinois law forced NEMA grapple with wave of new laws modeled after the Illinois law. Unlike the American Medical Association, NEMA made NEMA’s response to medical regulation was hampered by its membership’s disagreement about what constituted an Eclectic physician was and its muddled stance members’ widely divergent views on medical licensing even hazierregulation. The debate over medical regulation exposed the fissures within the Eclectic community. Local The older physicians, who cobbled together the Thomsonians, disgruntled Regulars, and state societies medical reformers to give birth to Eclectic medicine in 1830s and 1840s, were left a discordant group and predisposed to oppose any type governmental regulation. These medical reformers had fought hard to develop eliminate medical regulation in the first of half of the century. They believed that state regulations discriminated, marginalized, and limited their own policies practice rights. They viewed Regulars with suspicion and they received mixed messages from NEMAdistrusted their motives in advocating for medical licensing. Whether or The younger generation of Eclectic physicians was not NEMA could influence or shape as hostile to medical regulation despite being trained by the direction original Eclectics. Unlike their older colleagues, many of them were Eclectic medical legislation is unclear, but due school graduates. They had very little in common with the illiterate Thomsonians who aligned themselves with Eclectics in opposition to medical regulation in the first half of the century. This younger generation was more concerned with legitimizing Eclecticism than expanding its befuddled position on licensing it abdicated any leadership position it may have played in this nationwide definition to include uneducated and marginal medical debatepractitioners. The second generation of Eclectic physicians believed that they had to purge their uneducated colleagues from their ranks to legitimize Eclecticism. Instead of fighting regulation, they often worked with Regulars to pass nonpartisan legislation.

Eclectics realized that Regulars needed Irregular support to pass licensing laws, and they knew that discriminatory legislation often failed in state legislatures. Between 1870 and 1880, Eclectics reported to NEMA was the that state legislatures were unwilling to discriminate against Irregulars. A Nebraska report stated that its legislatures would not first attempt pass discriminatory legislation. Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin successfully defeated bills proposed by the American Social Science Association designed to consolidate control under the old-school medical societies. Even with these hopeful signs, medical licensing made Eclectics anxious. The debate over licensing within the NEMA sparked an outright war between two of its most prominent members: Dr. John King and Dr. Anson Clark. While both physicians sought to downplay the severity of the clash, it is clear from their rhetoric that their battle represented a serious dilemma for NEMA. The tenor of the debate suggested that both physicians believed they were fighting for the soul of the eclectic Eclectic movement. King and Clark attacked each other mercilessly to shape its policy. King opposed any type of medical sect regulation, while Clark worked on the Illinois Board of Health with Regular physicians to create regulate the practice of medicine in the state. This heated debate created confusion with NEMA and spawned an awkward and ambiguous policy towards medical regulation. Instead of presenting a united front and crafting a national organizationcoherent policy, NEMA muddled its stance on medical licensing. NEMA sent mixed messages and left local and state societies to develop their own policies on licensing. In 1848Whether NEMA could influence or shape the direction of medical legislation is unclear, but because of its befuddled position, it abdicated any leadership position it might have played in this nationwide medical debate when these laws were first being pushed through state legislatures. John King was a group pioneer in Eclectic medicine and one of physicians its most ardent devotees. In 1838, he graduated from the “Eclectic Reform School” met Medical School of New York founded by Wooster Beach (1794-1868) in Cincinnati at 1827. As a graduate of the Reform Medical School, King ensured that he would be ostracized by the medical establishment as a “charlatan and quack.”<ref> <i>Eclectic Medical Institute for Journal, 1894,</i> Vol. LIV, No. 2: 57-8, http://books.google.com/ebooks. </ref> After graduation, he traveled extensively and settled in Kentucky where he practiced medicine until 1849. He helped organize the first National Convention of Eclectic Physicians, and the attendees elected him secretary at the convention. Between 1849 and 1851 he served as the chairman of Materia Medica at the Memphis Institute. By 1850In 1851, King joined the National Convention had morphed into a new national organization, faculty at the National recently founded Eclectic Medical AssociationInstitute of Cincinnati (EMI) and taught there for the next four decades. It is perhaps unsurprising that During his tenure, EMI became the leading Eclectic medical school in 1848the country. King established himself as one of the leading writers of Eclectic textbooks, such as the Eclectic Dispensatory, regular and published most of his books on Eclectic medicine while at EMI. Eclectic physicians formed throughout the nineteenth century extensively used King’s textbooks in their medical schools. He joined the American Medical Association (AMA)second iteration of NEMA in 1872 and served as its president from 1878-1879. Anson Clark was born in Massachusetts in 1836, but he moved to Cook County, Illinois, when he was five years old. He graduated from EMI in 1861, and likely attended King’s classes as a student. Unlike During the AMACivil War, he worked as a surgeon in the 127th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. After the first NEMA failed war, Clark moved back to surviveChicago and in 1868, became a member of the faculty and later its dean at the Bennett College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery. By 1856In addition to working at Bennett, he served as an editor at the chairman Chicago Medical Times and a member of the Committee Illinois General Assembly in 1871. Starting in 1877, Clark served on the Illinois Board of Health. During his fourteen years on the board, he served as both its treasurer and secretary. As member of the Illinois board, he was responsible for regulating the practice of medicine under the 1877 and 1887 Medical Practice Acts. Additionally, Clark served as the president of NEMA in 1880-1881 and the Illinois State and Progress Eclectic Medical Society in 1898.<ref> “The Eclectic News,” The Eclectic Medical Journal 1898 (July, 1898): 449, http://books.google.com/ebooks; Harvey Wickes Felter, <i>History of the Eclectic Medical Institute Cincinnati, Ohio: 1845-1902</i>, (Alumnal Association of the Eclectic Medical Reform complained that an insufficient number Institute, Cincinnati, 1902), 177, http://books.google.com/ebooks; H. G. Cutler, ed., <i>Physicians and Surgeons of eclectic the West, Illinois Edition,</i> (American Biographical Publishing Company, 1900), 238-240, http://books.google.com/ebooks. </ref> These two physicians were attending from different generations of Eclectics and they represented NEMA’s conventionsplit on medical licensing. In 1873, NEMA began discussing the growing push for medical licensing in places such as Texas. The organization passed a resolution for requiring “every person” hoping to practice “medicine, surgery or obstetrics” to pass a comprehensive examination covering “the fundamental sciences, comprehending a course of study necessary for the acquirement of a full knowledge of the science of medicine in all its branches. ” During NEMA believed that an examination was necessary because the general public could not determine “the scientific attainments of medical practitioners” as medical diplomas were so “freely granted” they had ceased to be “evidence of the scientific attainments” of their holders.<ref> Transactions of the National Eclectic Medical Association for the organization’s last conventionyears 1879-1880 (1880): 14-15, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref> Additionally, Eclectics could pass this exam as easily as Regulars and Homeopaths. This resolution went far beyond the Vicegoals of the Illinois Medical Practice Act. It required an examination of non-President graduates and graduates of medical schools that were not in good standing with the board. The NEMA decried resolution would have required all physicians to take the “apathy manifested by medical examination. This resolution is surprising because so many Eclectics in not sustaining their organizationswere skeptical of medical licensing.”

It is unclear what killed NEMAKing, however, although Joseph Haller cited a cascade of problems that was not only weakened just skeptical about medical licensing; he was adamantly opposed to any medical licensing regulations. In his presidential address of 1879 at the NEMAconference in Cleveland, but reform medicine in generalhe attacked medical regulation generally. During this time eclectic King argued that like religion, medicine was comprised of two disparate groups -- “eclectics and independent Thomsoniansdid not require county, state, or federal regulation.” The eclectic physicians were comprised Instead of graduates outsourcing medical licensing to the state, each school of both eclectic and allopathic medical schoolsmedicine should be responsible for regulating themselves. Like regular physicians, King believed that these educated physicians wanted laws did not protect the public and that they were an insult to organized themselves into local, state and national organizationsthe intelligence of the American people. On King stated that the other hand, proposed regulatory schemes would not advance medicine or science; instead they were simply the Thomsonians were often neither work of “bigoted scheming minds” that sought to elevate their own medical school graduates or well-educatedsect. It would have been exceeding hard King was most concerned with the efforts of Regular physicians to regulate medicine because he considered their primary goal was to organize themmarginalize Eclectic medicine. AdditionallyInstead of elevating the medical profession, Haller has argued he believed that when the reform of medicine or eclecticism was undermined by both the Civil War state legislatures passed medical licensing and, ironically, registration acts they violated the success “spirit of medical eclectics justice” in eliminating legislation limiting their practice rightsthe United States Constitution.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1879-1880</i>: 14-15.</ref>

By 1870, attempts to revive Not only did medical regulation had begun in earnest. During the winter session of the 1866-67 of the Ohio legislatureundermine Eclectic medicine, a bill was introduced King felt that required physicians Regulars would continue to be examined by the Ohio State Medical Society discriminate and graduates of a medical schooltorment Irregular practitioners. While this and other bills proposed around the country in Even after Eclectic physicians had complied with the 1860s were ultimately defeatedRegulars’ “legal enactments, it became increasingly clear that eclectics ” Regulars still would have refuse to consult with Irregulars and refer to combat potentially hostile legislation in numerous state legislaturesEclectics as “ignorant conceited quack[s]. ” During the 1870sHe could not imagine that Regulars would ever stop maligning and persecuting Eclectics, even if Eclectic physicians demonstrated that they were qualified for medical licensing laws were passed in several states including Texas, Alabama, Kansas, California and Illinoislicenses. But it was the passage and implementation of the Illinois Medical Practice Act starting in 1877 King held that created a split in the leadership of NEMA on medical licensing. This crack lead Regulars did not seek to protect humanity from charlatanism, but instead sought to an ongoing debate within NEMA for legislate the next decadeEclectics out of existence. Two NEMA physicians played an outsized role in these debates: Dr. John Thirty years of discrimination by Regulars convinced King (1813-1894) and Drthat Regulars could not be trusted to treat Eclectics fairly. Anson L. Clark (1836-1910). King was a pioneer in eclectic medicine and one of its most prominent practitioners. In 1838, King graduated from A state report issued by the Reform Medical School of New York founded delegation at the 1879 convention supported King’s claims by Wooster Beach (1794-1868) in 1827. As a graduate of emphasizing the Reform Medical School, King ensured that he would be ostracized historical efforts made by the Regulars to degrade medical establishment as a “charlatan and quackreformers.” Ostracism did not prevent King from becoming a leader The report remarked that Regular physicians in the eclectic movement. After graduation, he traveled extensively and settled in Kentucky where he practiced medicine until 1849. He was integral to organizing the first National Convention half of Eclectic Physicians and was named secretary at its first convention. Between 1849 and 1851 he served as the chair of Materia Medica at the Memphis Institutecentury secured medical regulations that criminalized medical practice for Irregular physicians. In 1851Additionally, King joined the faculty at the recently founded Eclectic Medical Institute Regulars were accused of Cincinnati (EMI) and King taught at EMI for actively seeking to drive Irregulars from the next four decades. While King was at EMI it became the leading eclectic medical school in the country. While King’s textbook Eclectic Dispensatory was discussed at the 1851 NEMA convention, he published most of his books on eclectic medicine after moving practice by encouraging former Irregular patients to EMI. Eclectic sue their physicians throughout the nineteenth century extensively used his textbooks. <ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1879-80</i>: He joined the second NEMA in 1872 two years after it was found and served as its president 187891-187992. </ref>

Clark was born The actions of the Illinois State Board of Health in Massachusetts in 18361879 against King’s own medical college, but he moved to Cook CountyEclectic Medical Institute (EMI), Illinois when he reinforced his belief that medical regulation was five years oldsimply a Trojan horse to help Regulars destroy Eclecticism. He graduated from Fifteen days before the 1879 NEMA conference, the Illinois State Board of Health determined that EMI was not a medical school in 1861 and probably attended King’s classes as a student“good standing. ” During The Illinois Board of Health had the Civil War, he worked as power to determine whether a surgeon medical school was in the 127th Illinois Volunteer Infantry“good standing. ” After the war he moved back Graduates of medical schools in good standing did not have to take medical examination to Chicago and practice medicine in 1868 became a member of the faculty and later as dean at the Bennett College of Eclectic Medicine and SurgeryIllinois. In addition According to working at Bennett he worked as an editor at the Chicago Medical Times and a member of board, EMI, the most prominent Eclectic medical school in Illinois General Assembly in 1871. Starting in 1877, he served was unacceptable because it insisted on the Illinois Board only “giving two full courses of Health (hereinafter Board)lectures in one year. ” During his fourteen years on At the Board he served as both its treasurer and secretary. As member beginning of the Board he was responsible for regulating the practice board’s existence, instead of medicine under the 1877 Medical Practice Actevaluating each school individually, it sought to apply rather mechanistic standards to evaluate medical schools. AdditionallyIn 1878, he served as the President of NEMA board determined that any medical school that had “two graduating courses in 1880-1881 and the Illinois State Eclectic Medical Society one year” was not in 1898good standing. These two physicians personified While the generation gap within NEMA and the split on medical licensing. At time of NEMA’s creationboard’s criterion was not particularly sophisticated, American medicine it was struggling with two competing ideas: clear-cut. a physician’s duty The board could use the medical schools’ own literature to protect the public and personal libertydetermine whether it satisfied their requirements. Many physicians were troubled by the potential expansion This criterion made it possible to cheaply evaluate hundreds of state power over the medical system, but they were equally concerned about schools in the potential danger created by unqualified North America and uneducated physiciansEurope. In an Illinois physician best highlighted the dilemma state medical regulation posed:

In our eagerness Clark not only served as a member of the board that decertified EMI, but he explicitly approved of the board’s action. A Chicago Medical Times editorial by Clark in July 1879 stated that the board was simply “striving to make medical education more thorough, more comprehensive and more fully in accord with the progressive spirit of the times.”<ref><i>The Chicago Medical Times, 1879</i>, Vol. XI, No. 4: 181-182, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref> The editorial chastised the “belligerence” of EMI and asked for the school to “gracefully yield” to the board’s demands. The editorial went as far as to suggest that “students and preceptors to take note of the existing states of affairs.”<ref> The Chicago Medical Times, 1879, Vol. XI, No. 4: 181-182, http://books.google.com/ebooks. </ref> Yet, Clark was one of only two editors listed on the Chicago Medical Times byline. Therefore, he probably wrote the editorial and even if he did not, he agreed with this editorial. Illinois board’s action against EMI most likely was not motivated by animus to Eclecticism, and Clark’s support for the board undermined King’s claim. Also, the mechanistic nature of the board’s criteria would have complicated any attempts to punish only Eclectic schools. The board also asked numerous Allopathic medical schools to do all comply with the board’s criteria. Still, the editorial’s suggestion that lies before“students and preceptors” should take note of the current situation did imply another reason for Clark’s strong support of the action against EMI. While Clark simply may have agreed with the board’s position as an attempt to elevate medical education, he also may have had a financial stake in our keen appreciation decertifying EMI. As a faculty member of the competing Bennett Medical College in Chicago, he might have benefited by steering students to Bennett. Despite King’s attack against medical licensing, various state Eclectic medical organizations advocated on behalf of regulation in their legislatures. The Nebraska delegation even stated that it was concerned that the state might pass medical regulations that were “too liberal.” It sought licensing that not only protected the public from harm, but advanced the reputation of Eclectic medicine. The Nebraska delegation also was concerned that charlatans often “assume[d] the name Eclectic” when they practiced medicine. <ref>Transactions NEMA 1879-80 (1880): 86. </ref> The Kansas delegation conjectured that passage of its state law enhanced the reputation of Eclectic physicians and “confidently believed” that it would spur growth in the state organization. Instead of aiding the Regular school, the Kansas report indicated that medical regulation was “a great desirability discomfiture” to them.<ref> Transactions of NEMA 1879-80 (1880): 77-78.</ref> Other Eclectics clearly were willing to forget past actions by Regulars and compromise with them if they could secure non-discriminatory legislation. During the next convention in Chicago in 1880, several members raised legitimate concerns about the reputation of Eclectic medical education. In 1880, NEMA became aware that John Buchanan, one of the ringleaders of a large and notorious diploma mill in Philadelphia, listed serving as the president of accomplishing certain endsNEMA as one of his chief credentials. Even though his statements and actions were fraudulent, we are NEMA justifiably was concerned that Buchanan’s claims could undermine faith in danger NEMA. As a direct consequence of Buchanan and other Philadelphia entrepreneurs’ trafficking in medical degrees, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a medical registration act two years later designed to end this unsavory practice. Benjamin Lee, a prominent Regular physician from Philadelphia, argued that act had at least “temporarily” closed the most egregious diploma mills.<ref><i>Transactions of the American Medical Association 1882</i> (1882): 385, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref> losing sight Buchanan’s fraud encouraged members to discuss how diploma sales could be halted. Members proposed a resolution at the convention to support the creation of state medical boards that would end the distinction between things proper traffic of fake diplomas and medicines. The proposal dictated that their support was contingent on the boards’ beginning to be governed by the major medical sects. During Dr. Milbrey Green’s address to the convention in 1880, he emphasized that since 1873, NEMA supported regulations designed to prevent “incompetent men” from receiving diplomas. Green acknowledged that the country had been flooded with fraudulent diplomas from Allopathic, Homeopathic, and Eclectic schools of medicine. He stated that it was critical for State all physicians to unite against these practices because NEMA and other state medical authority societies could not eliminate these problems on their own.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1879-80</i> (1880): 2-63. </ref> Green’s statement made it clear that NEMA needed to support some type of state legislation to eliminate diploma mills. He also underlined the threat they posed to doEclectic medicine. In Wisconsin, the state Eclectic society agreed with Green, and helped pass a medical licensing act that required physicians to possess a medical school diploma. The Wisconsin report stated that Eclectics did not want any “half-breed Eclectics here and things which are desirable in themselves shall be glad to slough them off.”<ref> <i>Transactions of NEMA 1881-82</i> (1882): 82-83.</ref> Other Eclectic physicians argued that medical regulation not only might eliminate fraudulent practitioners but belong improve relations between various medical sects. The report from Anson’s Illinois delegation stated that medical regulation in the domain state thawed relations among the “Eclectic, Old-School or Homeopathic” physicians. Instead of discrimination, the report stated that Eclectics no longer reported “unpleasant encounters” with other Regular physicians.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1880-81</i> (1881): 8.</ref> When Regulars served side by side with Eclectics and Homeopaths, it made it more difficult for Regulars to demonize them. The Illinois report suggested a brighter future for Eclectics if they were willing to compromise their properviews on medical regulation.

Between 1870 Whether licensing immediately ameliorated relations between Regulars and 1900Irregulars is debatable, but mixed licensing boards gave these physicians an opportunity to meet each other as colleagues and equals. Clark stated that he did not feel threatened by the Regular physicians he worked with on the board. Where King saw enemies, Clark recognized physicians who were quite similar to himself. They were medical school graduates, who were deeply involved with medical profession education, active in their medical societies, and published in medical journals. These values and goals were shared also by organized, educated Eclectics and Homeopaths. While medical licensing was not necessarily a fait accompli in 1880, it was becoming clear that state legislatures were becoming more inclined to pass these regulations especially if they were tied to sanitation reform. As Eclectics continued to debate the merits of licensing, the crawl toward nationwide licensing continued in the 1880s. While the 1870s was forced defined by these early efforts to consider abandoning an expansive notion pass any type of liberty medical practice acts, in the 1880s, physicians, medical societies, and freedom in order the newly created medical licensing boards often sought both to protect Americans from unorganized implement these laws and incompetent strengthen the newly created medical practitionersregulations. In 1873states where legislatures passed registration laws, NEMA medical societies immediately attacked these regulations as ineffective and useless. Additionally, after tying together boards of health and medical licensing, Regulars created a strong argument in favor of licensing and expanding their power. Doctors effectively had turned medical licensing from an economic to a public health issue. As state supreme courts around the country began discussing to rule in favor of licensing laws, opponents were forced to double down against their passage. If state courts refused to invalidate licensing, then the growing push for medical only way to stop licensing laws was to prevent their progress in state legislatures. These early court decisions placed additional pressure on opponents of licensing within the United StatesNational Eclectic Medical Association (NEMA). The organization passed a resolution debate in favor of requiring “every person” hoping to practice “medicinepassing nonpartisan licensing legislation continued at the 1883 NEMA annual convention in Topeka, Kansas. The president of NEMA, surgery or obstetrics” to pass a comprehensive examination covering “the fundamental sciencesAndrew Jackson Howe, comprehending a course openly advocated the creation of “organized and efficient Boards of Health” as long as the “rules adopted” were equitable. Howe cited the creation of study necessary for the acquirement Missouri Board of a full knowledge Health as an example of acceptable nonpartisan medical regulation. He even believed that this type of legislation eventually would eliminate the science American Medical Association ethics rules that barred Regulars from consulting with Irregulars.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1883-84</i> (1884): 50. </ref> Eclectic opponents of medicine medical licensing became more vocal and boisterous in all its branchestheir opposition.” Organized Regulars already had demonstrated that they needed Irregular support in most states to pass licensing, and the opponents of these laws in NEMA believed that an examination was necessary because continued the general public could attack to convince NEMA’s membership to oppose these laws and not determine “the scientific attainments compromise with Regulars. In 1884, despite the continued advocacy by leadership on behalf of nonpartisan medical practitioners” regulation, NEMA’s position on medical licensing was in flux as John King and Anson Clark debated the topic at the annual convention in Cincinnati, the birthplace of Eclectic medicine. King’s and medical diplomas were so “freely granted” Clark’s speeches at the convention demonstrated that they not only disagreed fundamentally on the necessity and legality of medical regulation, but represented the fundamental split within NEMA. They had ceased very different experiences with medical regulation up to be “evidence this point in their careers. King had taken part, along with his older Eclectic colleagues, in the dismantling of discriminatory state medical regulations in the 1840s and 1850s. These earlier laws were passed by Regulars, and they were intentionally meant to marginalize Irregular physicians. King was sickened by the scientific attainments” fact that Eclectics now were working with Regulars, who he believed still wanted to eliminate Eclectics and Homeopaths. On the other hand, Clark was twenty years younger than King and was not involved in this struggle. Clark may have been against discriminated by Regulars during his career, but he still believed that he could successfully compromise with them and elevate the medical profession. At the 1884 convention, both King and Clark were invited to present their views on licensing to the membership. Their disagreement was not limited to medical legislation; the heart of their holdersdisagreement centered on the definition of Eclectic medicine. AdditionallyWhile King maintained an expansive definition and deemed numerous uneducated and marginal practitioners as medical Eclectics, Clark’s definition limited Eclecticism to his organized and educated colleagues. Numerous Eclectic medical practitioners, eclectics could pass this exam viewed by King as easily his brothers-in-arms, were seen by Clark as regulars frauds and homeopathscharlatans. They were arguing not only about medical legislation, but about who comprised the legitimate heart and soul of Eclecticism.In many ways this definitional debate was limited to the Eclectics. This resolution went far beyond While Homeopaths were threatened by licensing, they did not have the same problems defining Homeopathy. Unlike Eclecticism, Homeopathy was the goals product of a single physician. As long as Homeopaths agreed to follow Samuel Hahnmann’s medical system, they automatically knew who was a Homeopath and who was not. On the Illinois hand, Eclectics were defined by their diversity. Medical Practice Actlicensing threatened this diversity because licensing was designed to eliminate medical practitioners who did not fit a certain mode. It required an examination Medical licensing was beginning to coalesce around the notion that doctors needed to have a medical degree from a certain type of non-graduates and graduates institution. Any physician who failed to attend the right type of institution risked being marginalized or eliminated. King consistently opposed medical schools which legislation in any form throughout his career and his position never changed. King was convinced that any Eclectics who were even just lukewarm to licensing were not essentially “traitors” because they have forgotten the sacrifice made by early Eclectics to overturn the medical legislation propounded in good standing with the Boardfirst half of the century. The <ref> <i>Transactions of NEMA resolution would have required 1884-85</i> (1885): 181.</ref> He felt Eclectics had an obligation to oppose medical regulation in all physicians its forms. In his address, King made several provocative arguments in opposition to take licensing -- arguments that were focused on undermining the growing support for medical examinationlicensing in NEMA. This resolution is surprising because so many eclectics He attacked medical regulations and claimed that they were skeptical “despotic” enactments that violated the United States Constitution, which guaranteed rights “equally.” Not only did licensing violate the constitution, it was ultimately a “system or spying, of oppression and of usurpation, fully equal to the Machiavellian absolutism of certain European nations.”<ref> Transactions of NEMA 1884-85 (1885): 178-79, 187.</ref> King declared that American civil rights grew “out of the Constitution” and that any effort to eliminate these rights would establish a precedent for future deprivations. Even medical registration (the least onerous type of licensing) was described by him as “disgraceful, detestable, anti-republican, and in opposition to that Amendment of the Federal Constitution intended to prevent caste monopoly.” He simply could not understand why physicians who had practiced “20, 30 or 40 years” should be compelled to register with the state.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 178-79, 186-87.</ref>

One of the most unconvinced eclectics was John KingKing’s opposition to medical regulation did not stop there. In his presidential address in1879 at the NEMA conference in Cleveland, he attacked He also asserted that medical Eclecticism itself was an expression of American freedom and that any type of regulation generallywould undermine the concept and practice of Eclecticism. King argued that like religionIn King’s mind, medicine did Eclecticism represented not require countyjust freedom from the dogmatic views of the Old School, state or federal regulationbut mental freedom that could only preserved if “destructive legislation” was defeated. Instead of outsourcing He thought that medical licensing to regulation could weaken the state, each school strength of reformed medicine should be responsible for regulating themselvesby limiting the freedom of its practitioners. King believed that these Not only were individual physicians’ rights curtailed by medical legislation, but licensing laws did not protect would prevent the general public and from seeking treatment from whomever they desired. The public wanted the same freedom in selecting their physician as they were an insult did in picking “their religion” or “their tailor.”<ref><i> Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 15-16.</ref> King objected to the intelligence of notion that only the state could evaluate physicians adequately and protect the American peoplepublic from fraudulent practitioners. King stated that Instead relying on the proposed regulatory schemes would not advance medicine or science; instead they were simply state, the work of “bigoted scheming minds” which sought public should be permitted to elevate evaluate physicians on their own medical sect. King was most concerned with assumed that malpractice law could more than adequately protect the efforts public from incompetent or unqualified physicians. The ability of regular physicians citizens to regulate medicine because he believed sue their primary goal was physicians, King argued, gave them sufficient enforcement power to marginalize eclectic medicineensure public health. Instead <ref><i>Transaction of the elevating the medical profession, the state legislatures when they passed medical licensing and registration acts had violated the “spirit of justice” contained in the United States ConstitutionNEMA 1884-83</i>: 178-181.</ref>

Not only did medical regulation undermine eclectic medicine, King felt fervently believed that regulars would continue Old School physicians could not be trusted to discriminate pass fair and torment irregular practitionersequitable licensing acts. Even after eclectic physicians had complied with Regulars used medical legislation in the first half of the regulars’ “legal enactmentscentury to marginalize and attack Irregulars,” regulars would still refuse to consult with irregulars and refer to eclectics as “ignorant conceited quack[s]King believed that the current push for licensing was no different.” King did not believe He stated that regulars would ever stop maligning only Regulars and persecuting eclectics simply even if eclectic physicians qualified for their proxies favored medical licensesregulation. While Regulars argued that they sought licensing “to protect the people,” King held did not believe that the regulars people shared their concern. The demand for medical legislation did not seek to protect humanity come from charlatanismcommon citizens, but instead sought to legislate the irregulars out of existence. King’s views were supported by the thirty years of discrimination he had suffered had the hands of Old School who had maintained their rigid Code of Ethics. This Code barred regular physicians from consulting with irregular physicians or Regulars and their patients. A state report issued by the New York delegation at the convention also emphasized the historical efforts made by regulars to degrade medical reformersproxies. The report emphasized that regular physicians in the first half of the century had secured medical regulations that criminalized medical practice for irregular physicians. Additionally, regulars Regulars were accused of actively seeking not trying to drive irregulars from protect the public’s health and welfare; they simply sought to create a medical practice by encouraging former irregular patients to sue their physiciansmonopoly.

King’s conviction that medical regulation The public, according to King, was simply in a Trojan horse much better position to protect its health and welfare than state legislatures.Additionally, Regulars were interested in preserving their “vacillating, uncertain system” of medicine. According to King, Old School medicine was probably reinforced by on the actions of ropes and the Illinois State Board of Health in 1879 against his own Regulars were advocating only for medical college, EMI, fifteen days before the 1879 NEMA conferencelicensing while they still possessed some credibility. On June 3While Regulars may have sneered and jeered at Irregulars from a distance, 1879 King argued that they had adopted Irregular medicine over the Illinois State Board of Health determined that EMI was not medical school in “good standingpast forty years.” Under Previous theories and hypotheses considered essential parts of the 1877 Illinois Medical Practice ActOld School, especially heroic medicine, the Board asserted it had the power to determine whether a medical school was in “good standingrecently been questioned or even rejected.” Graduates Over time, Regular physicians’ understanding of medical schools disease underwent dramatic changes. King attempted to chart the changes in good standing did not have to take medical examination to practice Old School medicine in Illinois. According First, he stated that disease was believed to be caused by “certain conditions of the Board, EMI, fluids of the most prominent eclectic medical schools, system.” Later Regulars altered this dogma and became convinced that disease was unacceptable because it insisted on “giving two full courses caused by “conditions of lectures in one year” which would permit students to graduate in one yearboth the fluids and solids. ” At King declared that their understanding of disease was again being replaced by the beginning “names of the Board’s existencebacteria, bacilli, micrococci, instead of evaluating each school individual it sought to apply rather mechanistic standards to evaluate medical schools. In 1878microbes, or minute vegetable formulation in the Board determined that any medical schools which held “two graduating courses fluids, in one year” could not be found to be the solids, or in good standingboth. ” While the Board’s criterion The existence of competing sects of medicine was not particularly sophisticated, it was straightforwardin King’s mind, “prima facia evidence of the fallibility of regular practice” and a demonstration of the Regulars’ questionable reputation. The Board King believed that only medical regulation could use preserve the medical schools’ own literature to determine whether or not it satisfied their requirementsRegulars’ waning strength. This criterion made it possible to cheaply evaluate hundreds <ref> Transactions of medical schools in the North America and EuropeNEMA 1884-85 (1885): 180, 182-83.</ref>

Clark not only served as a member of the Board King also argued that decertified EMImedical legislation, but he explicitly approved instead of protecting American lives, ultimately would imperil public health because it would prevent talented individuals from entering the Board’s actionpractice of medicine. A Chicago Medical Times editorial in July 1879 King stated the Board that many successful physicians had practiced without diplomas and that it was simply “striving unnecessary to make medical education more thorough, more comprehensive and more fully have one in accord with the progressive spirit of the timesorder to treat patients effectively. Medical legislation not only would prohibit numerous people from practicing medicine, but if a “farmer, grocer or other non-professional person” discovered “a cure for cancer,” The editorial chastised the “belligerence” of the EMI and asked the school to “gracefully yield” to Boards demandslicensing would bar them from sharing their cures. The editorial went as far as While King did not disparage medical graduates, he stated that “too much legal importance has been given to suggest it” because a medical degree cannot ensure that “students an individual was a “safe and preceptors to take note of the existing states of affairssuccessful medical practitioner.” At this time, Clark was one of only two editors listed on the Chicago Medical Times bylinestudents were not exposed to any educational material that could not be learned from a textbook. ThereforeKing did not believe that a broad education in math, science, anatomy, chemistry, “microscopic germs, he was undoubtedly aware ” and in agreement with this editorialdead languages would benefit physicians. Whether or It was not the Board’s actions against EMI were motivated by animus towards eclecticism is very difficult uncommon for “illiterate men” to determine. The mechanistic nature of have a rare gift for treating the Board’s criterion sick, but licensing laws would have complicated any attempts to punish just eclectic schools. Numerous allopathic medical schools were also asked to comply prevent them sharing their gifts with the Board’s criterionhumanity. Still<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 177, the editorial’s suggestion that “students and preceptors” should take note of the current situation does imply another reason for the Clark’s strong support of the action against EMI. While Clark may have simply agreed with the Board’s position as an attempt to elevate medical education180, it could be cynically noted that he potentially had a financial stake in the decertification of EMI183-85. As a faculty member Chicago’s Bennett Medical College he might have benefited personally by steering students away from EMI or undermining its reputation. </ref>

Despite The biggest tragedy in King’s jeremiad against medical licensingmind was that honest, various state eclectic medical organizations advocated on behalf of regulation in hardworking physicians and their legislatures. The Nebraska delegation even stated that they families’ very survival were concerned threatened by the state could pass specter of medical regulations that were “too liberal.” They sought licensing that not only protected the public from harmPeople, King stated, who faithfully executed their jobs as healers, but advanced would be classified as criminals for the reputation of eclectic medicinesame work that previously had been lauded. The imposters who endangered the public often “assume[d] the name Eclectic” when they practiced medicinemedical regulations in Illinois deprived many physicians of their rights and drove them from their homes. The Kansas delegation believed King cited the fact that the passage of its state law almost two thousand “Irregular” physicians had enhanced the reputation been forced out of eclectic physicians and “confidently believed” Illinois by medical licensing as evidence that it would spur growth in the state organizationlicensing was targeting their kind. Instead of aiding praising the regular school, efforts of the Kansas report indicated that medical regulation was “a great discomfiture” Illinois board to eliminate the least educated and the most unorganized physicians, he castigated themfor destroying the lives of thousands of able physicians. Other eclectics were clearly willing King even went out of his way to forget past actions by regulars defend the most reviled medical practitioners: nostrum peddlers. Nostrum peddlers sold medicines and compromise with them if they potions that not only possessed little medicinal value, but could secure nonbe dangerous. He pointed out the irony that Regular physicians often promoted nostrums while condemning their sellers as quacks. If anything, the hypocritical position taken by numerous Old School physicians simply underscored the collapse of their allegedly superior therapeutic system.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-discriminatory legislation85</i> (1885): 183, 190-91. </ref>

During the next convention in Chicago in 1880Finally, several members raised legitimate concerns about King claimed that ultimately “[r]estrictive laws are enacted” to generate revenue for the reputation of eclectic medical educationgovernment. In 1880, NEMA became aware that a “John Buchanan” in Philadelphia had not only claimed When the government grants special privileges or licenses to be the President of NEMAsome, but was selling eclectic medical degrees. Even though his statements and actions were fraudulentnot others, NEMA was concerned about the potential consequences it is a form of Buchanan’s actions for NEMA“indirect taxation. ” As a direct consequence of Buchanan and other Philadelphia entrepreneurs’ traffic in medical degreesan indirect tax, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a medical registration act two years later designed it was antithetical to end this unsavory practice. Benjamin Lee, a prominent regular physician from Philadelphia, believed that act had at least “temporarily” closed both the most egregious diploma mills. Unsurprisingly, the allegations Constitution and American principles of Buchanan’s fraud encouraged members to discuss how diploma sales could be haltedfreedom because it was essentially feudal in nature. At These taxes were premised on the same convention, a resolution was proposed to support the creation idea that citizens were incapable of State Boards that would end the traffic taking care of fake diplomas themselves and medicines, but only if they were ruled by all of the schools needed a “master or law to take care of medicinehim. ” During Dr. Milbrey Green’s address to King then extended the convention in 1880, he emphasized that NEMA, since 1873, had supported regulations designed same objection to prevent “incompetent men” from receiving diplomasboards of health. Green acknowledged He stated that the country had been flooded with fraudulent diplomas nation successfully existed for allopathic, homeopathic and eclectic schools of medicinemore than one hundred years without these government boards. He believed that it was critical for all physicians All of the functions granted to unite against these practices because NEMA and state boards of health had been handled successfully by local medical societies could not eliminate these problems on their own. Green’s statement was fairly clear, NEMA needed to support state legislation to eliminate diploma mills and the threat they represented to eclectic medicinelocal government authorities. In Wisconsin, the state eclectic society agreed with Green and helped pass a medical licensing act that required physicians to possess a medical school diplomaAmericans were more than capable of taking care of themselves without these indirect taxes or unnecessary boards. The Wisconsin report stated that the eclectics did not want any “half<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 190-breed Eclectics here and shall be glad to slough them off191.”</ref>

Other eclectic physicians argued Unlike King, Clark’s statement on medical legislation was brief and tightly focused. Clark believed that if Eclectics failed to embrace medical regulation could not only eliminate fraudulent practitionersregulations, Eclecticism’s very existence would be endangered. but improveWhile he directed his attention on the impact of the Illinois Medical Practice Act over its first five years, despite King’s assertions to Clark also briefly attacked several of the contrary, relations between various medical sectskey arguments advanced by King in his address. The report from Clark’s primary goal was to assuage his fellow physicians’ fears and demonstrate that the success of the Illinois delegation on law benefited Eclecticism in the status of eclectic medicine at state. Clark first noted that the 1880 convention stated that regulation state had actually improved relations between a legitimate interest in protecting the “Eclectic, Old-School or Homeopathic” schools health and lives of practiceits citizens. Instead of discriminationTherefore, he argued that protecting the report alleged lives of its citizens was part of its “police powers” and that eclectics no longer reported “unpleasant encounters” with other competing physiciansthe state had an absolute right regulate these matters. This report suggested a brighter future for eclectics King’s expectation that physicians should be exempt from government regulations was untenable, especially if they their actions were willing found to “be detrimental to compromise their views on medical regulationthe welfare of the people composing the commonwealth. ” Clark essentially acknowledged that the state had broad powers to regulate medicine. <ref> <i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 174-75.</ref>

Eclectics in a number of states were equally heartened by the fact that discriminatory legislation often failed in state legislatures. The year beforeNext, the Nebraska report Clark stated that the legislatures would not pass discriminatory legislation“venomous” Eclectic objections were ultimately counterproductive and “shortsighted. ” In 1880, the New Jersey report stated While King claimed that itAllopathy was collapsing, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin had successfully defeated Clark acknowledged a bills proposed readily apparent reality: Eclectics were vastly outnumbered by the American Social Science Association designed to consolidate control under the Old-School medical societies. An 1873 constitutional amendment in Texas barred any legislation which discriminated against any sects of medicineRegulars. In Kansasmost states, Eclectics comprised only one-sixth to one-twelfth of the recently approved medical practice act accidentally prevented the licensing total number of regular physiciansin the state. Under the statuteEclectics were a fairly small minority, Kansas outsourced control of the medicine to the regular, eclectic and homeopathic medical societies. Unfortunately for the regular physicians, they needed protection from the state determined that to elevate their medical society did not have a legal charter standing and was barred from licensing physicians. The debate in favor of passing nonpartisan legislation continued at the 1883 annual convention in Topeka, Kansasprotect their sect. The president In lieu of NEMAfighting each and every law regulating medicine, Andrew Jackson Howe, openly advocated the creation of “organized Clark believed that Eclectics needed to organize and efficient Boards of Health” as long as secure the “rules adopted” rights that Regular physicians were equitablewilling to grant them. Howe cited the creation <ref> <i>Transactions of the Missouri Board of Health as an example of acceptable nonpartisan medical regulation. He even believed that this type of legislation would eliminate eventually AMA ethics rules that barred regulars from consulting with irregulars. Clark would have certainly agreed with Howe’s assessment because had Missouri adopted legislation similar to that in Illinois. In NEMA 1884, the Illinois Board even helped Missouri organize its own medical board-85</i> (1885): 174-75. Members of the two boards often attended each other’s meetings. The similarities between the two states’ laws allowed Missouri members to model the principles Illinois used to “establish precedents and formulat[e] principles upon which to base decisions in the many difficult and delicate questions which continually present themselves.” </ref>

In 1884, despite Clark did not have the continued advocacy on behalf same benevolent view of nonpartisan medical regulation, NEMA altered its position on medical regulation after a spirited debate between the Irregular rabble that King and lionized. Clark at thought that the annual convention at the birthplace of eclectic medicineilliterate medical savants described by King were frauds, incompetents, Cincinnatiand “medical mountebanks. ” King’s and Clark’s previous statements to convention had already demonstrated King believed that they fundamentally disagreed on the necessity and legality of these uneducated medical regulation. These positions men were Eclectics, while Clark maintained a result of their very different experiences with medical regulationmuch more exclusive definition. Clark would not have seen an uneducated Thomsonian practitioner as a qualified physician, even though King had witnessed eclectic physicians the dismantling of discriminatory state medical regulations -- laws that intentionally marginalized irregular physicians by creating saw him or her as a class system for physicians. While regular physicians generally received government recognition colleague and were permitted to collect their fees, irregulars were excluded from these regulationsequal. Clark was twenty years younger believed that Eclectic medicine’s principled stand for freedom “allowed frauds to fill our nest with more dirt and rubbish than Kingall the decent ones could clear out. ” Clark may have been The uneducated physicians were not allies in a war against discriminated by regulars during his careerthe Regulars, but he still believed that he could successfully compromise with them threats to the reputation of organized and elevate educated Eclectic physicians. Unless the medical professionEclectics purged their ranks of this “rubbish,” they could not be “respected.”<ref> <i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 175-76. </ref>

At Clark was thrilled that the 1884 conventionIllinois Medical Practice Act chased one-thousand-five-hundred people from their medical practices. Instead of weeping for the displaced families, both King and Clark was comforted that these individuals were invited forced to present their different positions either abandon medicine or go to the membershipmedical school. Their disagreement was He maintained Eclectics were not limited to medical legislation; harmed by the board’s crackdown on itinerant physicians who lied about their skills in fact, the heart dishonest advertisements.<ref><i> Transactions of their disagreement centers on the definition NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 175-76.</ref> Clark did not believe that any of eclectic medicinethese individuals could be classified as Eclectics. While King maintained an expansive definition and deemed numerous uneducated and marginal Clark argued that Eclectics actively had to secure their rights as qualified medical practitioners as . If they simply opposed all medical eclecticslegislation, Clark’s definition limited eclecticism to his then Eclectics faced a precarious future. If they cooperated with other organized and educated colleaguesphysicians they could ensure their survival. Medical practitioners Clark believed that King were viewed by him as his brothers in arms were seen by Clark as frauds Illinois and charlatans. They Missouri were not only arguing about outstanding models for Eclectics because qualified practitioners, whether Allopath, Homeopath, Eclectic, benefited from just, nonpartisan medical legislation but who comprised the heart and soul of eclecticismregulation.

King had consistently opposed King’s and Clark’s positions on medical legislation regulation demonstrated the fundamental rift in any form throughout his career and his position never changedEclectic medicine. King believed that eclectics who were lukewarm to licensing were essentially “traitors” because they have forgotten the sacrifice made by early eclectics to overturn the medical legislation propounded in the first regulation was a continuation of the centuryongoing war between Regular and Irregular medicine. Eclectics had What King saw as a last desperate attempt by the enfeebled Regulars to preserve their status and legitimacy, Clark viewed as an obligation opportunity to oppose unite organized, educated medical regulation in any practitioners and all of its formselevate medical Eclecticism. In King’s address he made several provocative arguments in opposition King was unwilling to licensing; arguments that were focused compromise on undermining medical legislation, but Clark believed it was the growing support best hope for medical licensing in NEMAhelping qualified Eclectic physicians. He attacked medical regulations and claimed that they were “despotic” enactments that violated the Constitution which guaranteed rights “equally.” Not only did licensing violate the Constitution, but it King was ultimately a “system or spying, of oppression and of usurpation, fully equal to vested heavily in the Machavelian absolutism success of certain European nationsEclecticism.” He declared that American civil rights grew “out of the Constitution” was recognized as a pioneer and that any effort to eliminate these rights would establish a precedent leading scholar for future deprivationsthe movement. Even medical registration (the least onerous type of licensing) was described by him as “disgracefulHe had educated numerous physicians, detestableincluding Clark, antirepublicanduring his long career, and in opposition to he understood that Amendment medical legislation could potentially unite medicine. Instead of the Federal Constitution intended to prevent caste monopolyoccupying its niche, Eclectic physicians might be incorporated into Allopathy if licensing succeeded.” He simply could King clearly was concerned that Eclecticism would not understand why physicians who had practiced “20, 30 or 40 years” should be compelled able to register with the statemaintain its separate identity and ultimately disappear.

King’s opposition to medical regulation did not stop thereClark was less concerned with preserving Eclecticism. He also asserted that medical eclecticism itself was an expression of American freedom a full generation younger than King, and any type of regulation would undermine the concept he was willing to compromise with Allopaths and practice of eclecticismHomeopaths on licensing. In King’s mind, eclecticism represented He did not just freedom from hate the dogmatic views of the Old School, but mental freedom Regulars; he simply believed that could only preserved if “destructive legislation” their medical system was defeatedfundamentally unsound. He thought His attack on unorganized, uneducated, and marginal practitioners confirmed his belief that medical regulation medicine could weaken the strength of reformed medicine not be effectively practiced by limiting the freedom of its practitionerseveryone. Not only Education and training were individual physicians’ rights curtailed by medical legislationessential for physicians, but licensing laws would prevent the general public from seeking treatment from whomever they desiredand Clark simply did not want to be associated with traveling itinerants and illiterate herbalists. The public wanted Eclecticism accepted these individuals in the same freedom in selecting past, and he sought to eliminate their physician as they did presence in picking “their religion” or “their tailor.” King objected to the notion that only the state could adequately evaluate physicians Eclecticism and protect the public from fraudulent practitionersmedicine. Instead relying on If medical societies could not purge the Stateranks of quacks and charlatans, then he thought the public should be permitted states had a responsibility to evaluate physicians on protect their citizens. Clark’s assessment of these individuals undoubtedly was shaped by his own. King assumed that malpractice law could more than adequately protect experiences as a practicing physician and his work on the public from incompetent or unqualified physiciansIllinois board. The ability of citizens Illinois board conducted quasi-judicial hearings to sue their punish physiciansfor misconduct and ethical violations. In 1880, King arguedthe Illinois board prosecuted two physicians for practicing under aliases who assumed the identity of a prominent professor at Bennett Medical College, gave them sufficient enforcement power Clark’s employer. The Bennett faculty asked the board to ensure public healthprosecute the physicians and ultimately the charlatans’ medical licenses were revoked. <Ref> <i>Annual Report State Board of Health of Illinois 1880</i> (1881): 5-7. </ref> Clark had seen that medical licensing could protect prominent Eclectic physicians from King’s rabble.

King fervently believed that Old School physicians could not be trusted to pass fair and equitable licensing actsInterestingly enough, this generational gap also was appearing among the Regulars. Regulars had used Local and state Regular medical societies were forced to work with organized Irregular practitioners to secure legislation in . These interactions softened their attitudes on Irregular practitioners. The president of the first half of Illinois State Medical Society argued for this approach at the century to marginalize and attack irregulars and King believed that society’s annual meeting shortly before the current push for licensing act was no differentpassed in 1877. He stated that only regulars and their proxies were openly in favor While he demanded passage of a medical regulation. While the regulars argued that they sought licensing “to law to protect the peoplepublic from unqualified practitioners,” King did not believe he conceded that the people shared Eclectic and Homeopathic practitioners were, like Regular physicians, “devoted to their concernpatients and profession. ”<ref> <i>Transactions of the Twenty-Sixth Anniversary Meeting of the Illinois State Medical Society, 1876</i> (Chicago, 1876): The demand for 196, http://books.google.com/ebooks. </ref> He advocated détente between Regulars and Irregulars in Illinois and argued that the medical society should pass “wise and impartial legislation did not come from common citizens, ” which recognized only “well-educated men” but from debarred incompetents, “whether regular or irregular.” <ref><i>Transactions of the regulars and their proxies. The regulars were not trying to protect Twenty-Sixth Anniversary Meeting of the public’s health and welfare; they simply sought to create a medical monopoly. Illinois State Medical Society, 1876</i> (Chicago, 1876): The public according to King was in a much better position to protect its health and welfare than the state legislatures196.</ref>

Additionally, the regulars were not interested in saving, but preserving Many Regulars recognized that their “vacillating, uncertain system” understanding of medicine. According was changing, and some were beginning to King acknowledge that the Old School profession did not have a monopoly on effective medicine was on the ropes and the regulars were only advocating for medical licensing because they still possessed some credibility. While regulars may have sneered and jeered at irregulars from By 1884, most Regulars had rejected the heroic therapeutics that defined their practice a distancecentury earlier, King argued that even if they had adopted irregular medicine over the past forty yearswere still being taught in Regular medical schools. Previous theories Organized Regular and hypotheses considered essential parts of Old School medicine have been recently rejected. Over Irregular physicians were beginning to resemble each other more than at any other time a regular physician’s understanding of disease had endured dramatic changesin United States history. While King attempted still identified with the uneducated rabble, organized and educated Regular, Eclectic, and Homeopathic physicians began to chart the changes in Old School medicinesee that they shared common interests. FirstIn a democratic vote, he stated that disease was believed NEMA sided with King and agreed to be caused by “certain conditions of the fluids publish ten thousand copies of King’s address to sell to Eclectics around the systemcountry.” Later regulars alterd this dogma The association also unanimously approved a resolution thanking King for “his able and became convinced that disease was caused by “conditions scholarly address.”<ref> <i>Transactions of both the fluids and solidsNEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 29.” <?ref> In addition to recognizing King declared that their understanding of disease was again being replaced by the “names of bacteriafor his contributions, bacilli, micrococci, microbes, or minute vegetable formulation in NEMA changed its official stance on medical legislation. It passed a strong resolution stating “[t]hat while the fluids, National Eclectic Medical Association is in favor of elevating the solidsstandard of Medical Education, or in bothit is opposed to all medical legislation.” The existence of competing sects of medicine was in King’s mind “prima facia evidence <ref> <i>Transactions of the fallibility of regular practice” and a demonstration of the regulars’ questionable reputation. King believed that only medical regulation could preserve their waning strengthNEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 31. </ref>

While the passage of this resolution might have suggested a major shift in NEMA’s official stance on licensing, the resolution was altered the very next day. Instead of protecting American livesbeing a meaningful shift of its position, NEMA’s adoption of an outright opposition to licensing looked increasingly like a token of appreciation and respect to King also argued for his contributions to Eclecticism. A motion to insert “class” in front of “medical legislation” was adopted by NEMA. This change rendered the entire resolution meaningless. NEMA may have opposed “class medical legislation,” whatever that medical meant, but it failed to state what it did support. Did it support non-class legislation would ultimately imperil public health or no regulation at all? NEMA had not changed its position as much as guarantee its ambiguity. King failed to attend the next national convention because it would prevent talented individuals from entering his wife was ill, but he sent a letter to be read at the practice conference. Again, he emphasized his opposition to any form of medicinemedical regulation. King He stated that many successful physicians any Eclectics who supported medical legislation had practiced without diplomas “dough-faces and it was unnecessary cowardly hearts.” They had chosen to “lick the hands” of the Regulars who sought to “annihilate them.” Instead of reforming physicians, Eclectics needed to treat patients effectivelyfocus their energy on educating the public. Medical legislation would not only prohibit numerous people If educated patients foolishly chose to seek treatment from practicing medicinequacks, but if a “farmerit was “their American right and privilege.” <ref> <i>Transactions of NEMA 1884-85</i> (1885): 22. </ref> In 1886, grocer or other non-professional person” discovered “a cure for cancer” King again addressed NEMA about the dangers of medical licensing would bar them . His arguments changed little from sharing their curesthe 1884 debate. While King He reemphasized that physicians did not disparage medical graduates, he stated that “too much legal importance has been given to it” because need a medical degree cannot ensure scientific education and that an individual it was a “safe and successful inappropriate for medical practitionerboards to test them on this material.” Medical students were not exposed to any educational material Uneducated physicians had advanced medicine in all three medical branches, and King believed that could patients did not be learned from a textbookcare if their doctor was an expert in science. King did not believe also proposed forming medical societies composed of Irregular physicians and anyone else who opposed medical legislation. He believed that a broad education the Knights of Labor, the largest national labor union in maththe United States at that time, sciencecould be used as an appropriate model for these new organizations, anatomybecause “medical men, chemistryafter all, “microscopic germsare but laboring men.” He asked Eclectics to “Organise [sic] Promptly” to fight medical legislation. Not only should Eclectics unite with anyone who opposed medical legislation,” they should “avoid and dead languages would benefit physiciansbanish” dissenters. It was not uncommon for “illiterate men” King argued that Eclecticism faced extinction if they failed to have a rare gift for treating the sick, but licensing laws would prevent them sharing their gifts with humanityorganize themselves and fight.<ref><i>Transactions of NEMA 1886-87</i> (1887): 167-74. </ref>

In 1885, NEMA attempted to clarify its position on medical regulation. It passed three separate resolutions addressing licensing. The biggest tragedy in King’s mind was resolutions claimed that honest hardworking physicians and their families very survival it was threatened by still opposed to “Partisan Legislation,” but in favor of the specter board of health, as they were “not empowered to act prejudicially to any class of medical regulationsphysicians. ” People, King The final resolution stated, who had faithfully executed their jobs as healers would be classified as criminals for that NEMA favored “testing the same work constitutionality of laws” that had been previously laudeddiscriminated against Eclectics. The resolution adopted the previous year, which opposed “all class medical regulations in Illinois had deprived many physicians of their rights and driven from their homes. King cited legislation,” remained the fact that almost two thousand “irregular” physicians had been forced out official policy of Illinois by medical licensing as evidence that licensing was targeting their kindNEMA. Instead of praising While the efforts of the Illinois Board new resolutions were clearly an effort to eliminate the least educated and the most unorganized physiciansclarify its policy, he castigated them for destroying the lives they still did not advocate on behalf of thousands of able physiciansanything. King even went out <ref> <i>Transactions of his way to defend even the most reviled medical practitionersNEMA 1885-86</i> (1886): nostrum peddlers. He pointed out the irony that regular physicians often promoted nostrums while condemning their sellers as quacks. If anything the hypocritical position taken by numerous Old School physicians simply underscored the collapse of their allegedly superior therapeutic system10.</ref>

Finally, While King claimed that ultimately “[r]estrictive laws are enacted” and Clark were not able to generate revenue materially alter NEMA’s official stance on medical licensing, Clark’s vision for the governmentmedical licensing ultimately became reality. When the government grants special privileges or licenses to someBy King’s death in 1894, but not others it is medical licensing had become a form permanent feature of “indirect taxationAmerican life.” As an indirect tax it was antithetical to both King’s complaints that medical licensing laws violated the Constitution and American principles of freedom because it was essentially feudal in naturewere widely rejected. These taxes are premised on While courts occasionally expressed some skepticism about the idea that citizens were incapable merits and necessity of taking care of themselves and licensing, they needed universally held that the state had a “master or law to take care strong interest in protecting the health and welfare of himcitizens under its police powers.” Even in 1884, King then extended would have been aware that these laws were consistently upheld. Ultimately, he was engaged in wishful thinking when he stated that the same objection laws were unconstitutional. King sought to Boards preserve the free market of medicine just as many other people were becoming weary of Healthit. Noted historian and Eclectic physician, Alexander Wilder, highlighted the shifting Eclectic position. He stated By 1901, Wilder noted that even if Eclectics had “suffered persecution and resisted it manfully” at the nation had existed for over hundred years without these government Boardshands of Regulars, they were not against licensing if it focused solely on “practitioners who follow methods and procedures that are not embraced in their category” instead of on Eclectics.<ref> Alexander Wilder, History of Medicine. All <i>A Brief Outline of the functions granted to Boards American Eclectic Practice of Health had been successfully handled by local medical societies Medicine</i>, (New Sharon, Maine, 1901), 775. </ref> King’s concerns ultimately were dismissed, and local government authoritiesthe Eclectics gradually moved towards Clark’s position. Americans were more than capable of taking care of themselves without these indirect taxes or unnecessary boardsKing, however, was proven prescient in the end because when Eclectics accepted licensing, they gradually lost their distinctiveness and identity as a unique medical sect.

Unlike King, Clark’s statement on medical legislation was brief and tightly focused. Clark believed that if eclectics failed to embrace medical regulations, eclecticism’s very existence would be endangered. While he focused his attention on the impact of the Illinois Medical Practice Act over its first five years, he also briefly attacked several of the key arguments advanced by King in his address. His primary goal was assuage his fellow physicians’ fears and demonstrate that the success of the Illinois law had benefited eclecticism in Illinois. Clark first noted that State had an interest in protecting the health and lives of its citizens. Therefore, he argued that protecting the lives of its citizens was part of its “police powers” and the state had an absolute right regulate these matters. King’s expectation that physicians should be exempted from government regulations was untenable especially if their actions were found to “be detrimental to the welfare of the people composing the commonwealth.” Clark essentially acknowledged that the state had broad powers to regulate medicine. ====References==== Next, Clark stated that the “venomous” eclectic objections were ultimately counterproductive and “shortsighted.” While King claimed that allopathy was collapsing Clark acknowledged a readily apparent reality; eclectics were vastly outnumbered by regulars. In most states eclectics comprised only one-sixth to one-twelfth of the total number of physicians in each state. Eclectics were a fairly small minority and they needed protection from the State to elevate their standing and protect their sect. In lieu of fighting each and every law regulating medicine, Clark believed that eclectics needed to organize and secure rights that the regular physicians were willing to grant them. Clark did not have a benevolent view of the irregular rabble that King lionized. Clark thought that the illiterate medical savants described by King were frauds, incompetents and “medical mountebanks.” King believed that these uneducated medical men were eclectics, while Clark maintained a much exclusive definition. Clark would not have seen an uneducated Thomosonian practitioner as a qualified physician, but King saw them as colleagues and equals. Clark believed that eclectic medicine’s principled stand for freedom had “allowed frauds to fill our nest with more dirt and rubbish than all the decent ones could clear out.” The uneducated physicians were not allies in a war against the regulars, but threats to the reputation of organized and educated eclectic physicians. Unless the eclectics purged their ranks of this “rubbish” they could not be “respected.”Clark was thrilled that the Illinois Medical Practice Act chased 1500 people out of their medical practices. Instead of weeping for the displaced families, Clark was comforted that these individuals were forced to either abandon medicine or go to medical school. He maintained eclectics were not harmed by the Board’s crackdown on itinerant physicians who lied about their skills in dishonest advertisements. Clark did not believe that any of these individuals could be classified as eclectics. Clark argued that eclectics had to try and secure their rights as qualified medical practitioners. If they simply opposed all medical legislation, then eclectics faced a precarious future. If they cooperated with other organized and educated physicians they could ensure their survival. Clark believed that Illinois and Missouri were outstanding models for eclectics because qualified practitioners, whether allopath, homeopath, eclectic, had benefited from just, nonpartisan medical regulation. King’s and Clark’s position on medical regulation demonstrated a fundamental rift in eclectic medicine. King believed that medical regulation was a continuation of the ongoing war between regular and irregular medicine. What he saw as a last desperate attempt by the enfeebled regulars to preserve their status and legitimacy, Clark viewed as an opportunity to unite organized, educated medical practitioners and elevate medical eclecticism. King was unwilling to compromise on medical legislation, but Clark believed it was the best hope for helping the qualified eclectic physicians. King was heavily vested in the success of eclecticism. He was recognized as a pioneer and leading scholar for the movement. He had educated numerous physicians, including Clark, during his long career and he understood that medical legislation could potentially unite medicine. Instead of occupying their niche, eclectic physicians might be incorporated into allopathy if licensing succeeded. He was clearly concerned that eclecticism would not be able to maintain its separate identity and disappear. Clark is less concerned with preserving eclecticism. He was a full generation younger than King and he was willing to compromise with allopaths and homeopaths on licensing. He did not hate the regulars, he simply believed that they were wrong. His attack on unorganized, uneducated and marginal practitioners confirmed his belief that medicine could not be effectively practiced by anyone. Education and training were essential for physicians and he simply did not want to be associated with traveling itinerants and illiterate herbalists. Eclecticism had accepted these individuals in the past and he sought to eliminate their presence in eclecticism and medicine. If medical societies could not purge the ranks of quacks and charlatans, then he believed that the states had a responsibility to protect their citizens. Clark’s assessment of these individuals was undoubtedly shaped by his own experiences as a practicing physician and his work on the Illinois Board. The Illinois Board conducted quasi-judicial hearings to punish physicians for misconduct and ethical violations. In 1880, the Illinois Board prosecuted two physicians for practicing under aliases who assumed the identity of a prominent professor at Bennett Medical College, Clark’s employer. The Bennett faculty asked the Board to prosecute the physicians and ultimately the charlatans’ medical licenses were revoked. Clark had seen that medical licensing could protect prominent eclectic physicians from King’s rabble. Interestingly enough, this same rift and generational gap was appearing among the regulars. Local and state regular medical societies were forced to work with organized irregular practitioners to secure legislation. These interactions softened their attitudes on irregular practitioners. The President of the Illinois State Medical Society had argued for this approach at the society’s annual meeting shortly before the act was passed in 1877. While he demanded passage of a medical licensing law to protect the public from unqualified practitioners, he conceded that eclectic and homeopathic practitioners were, like regular physicians, “devoted to their patients and profession.” He advocated détente between regulars and irregulars in Illinois and argued that the Medical Society should pass “wise and impartial legislation” which recognized only “well-educated men” but debarred incompetents, “whether regular or irregular.” Many regulars recognized that their understanding of medicine was changing and some of them were beginning to acknowledge that the Old School profession did not have a monopoly on effective medicine. By 1884, most regulars had rejected the heroic therapeutics that had defined their practice a century earlier. Organized regular and irregular physicians were beginning to resemble each other more than at any other time in United States history. While King still identified with the uneducated rabble, organized and educated regular and irregular physicians began see that they shared common interests.  After King’s presentation, NEMA agreed to publish ten thousand copies of King’s address to sell to eclectics around the country. The Association also unanimously approved a resolution thanking King for “his able and scholarly address.” In addition to thanking King for his contributions, NEMA changed its official stance on medical legislation. It passed a strong resolution stating “[t]hat while the National Eclectic Medical Association is in favor of elevating the standard of Medical Education, it is opposed to all medical legislation.” While the passage of this resolution might have suggested a major shift in NEMA’s official stance on licensing, the resolution was altered the next day. A motion to insert “class” in front of “medical legislation” was adopted by NEMA. This change rendered the entire resolution meaningless. NEMA may have opposed “class medical legislation,” whatever that means, but it failed to state what it did support? Did it support non-class legislation or no regulation at all? NEMA had not changed its position as much as guarantee its ambiguity.  King failed to attend the next national convention because his wife was ill, but he sent a letter to be read at the convention. Again, he emphasized his opposition to any form of medical regulation. He stated that any eclectics who supported medical legislation had “dough-faces and cowardly hearts.” They had chosen to “lick the hands” of the regulars who sought to “annihilate them.” Instead reforming physicians, eclectics needed to focus their energy on educating the public. If an educated patient foolishly chose to seek treatment from quacks, it was “their American right and privilege.”  King again addressed NEMA in 1886 about the dangers of medical licensing. His arguments had changed little from the 1884 debate. He reemphasized that physicians did not need a scientific education and it was inappropriate for medical boards to test them on this material. Uneducated physicians had advanced medicine in all three medical branches and King believed that patients did not care if their doctor was an expert in science. King also proposed forming medical societies composed of irregular physicians and anyone else who was opposed medical legislation. He believed that the Knights of Labor could be used as an appropriate model for these new organizations, because “medical men, after all, are but laboring men.” He asked eclectics to “Organise Promptly” to fight medical legislation. Not only should eclectics unite with anyone who opposed medical legislation, they should “avoid and banish” dissenters. King argued that eclecticism faced extinction if they failed to organize themselves and fight. In 1885, NEMA attempted to clarify it position on medical regulation. It passed three separate resolutions addressing licensing. The resolutions claimed that it was still opposed to “Partisan Legislation,” but in favor of Board of Health as they were “not empowered to act prejudicially to any class of physicians.” The final resolution stated that NEMA favored “testing the constitutionality of laws” which discriminated against eclectics. The resolution adopted the previous year which opposed “all class medical legislation” remained the official policy of NEMA. While the new resolutions were clearly an effort to clarify their policy, they still did not advocate on behalf of anything. While King and Clark were not able to materially alter NEMA’s official stance on medical licensing, Clark’s vision for medical licensing ultimately became reality. By King’s death 1894, it was fairly clear that medical licensing had become a permanent feature of American life. King’s complaints that medical licensing laws violated the Constitution were widely rejected. While courts occasionally expressed some skepticism about the merits and necessity of licensing, they universally held that the state had a strong interest in protecting the health and welfare of citizens under its police powers. Even in 1884 King would have been aware that these laws had been consistently upheld. Ultimately, he was engaged in wishful thinking when he stated that the laws were unconstitutional. Additionally, while people had a right to choose their own physician, it was becoming increasingly difficult for patients to determine who was adequately qualified to treat them safely. King sought to preserve the free market of medicine just as many other people were becoming weary of it. Through their prosecutions, medical boards throughout the country demonstrated that the United States was plagued with dangerous and unqualified physicians. People were being killed by incompetents and malpractice laws did not protect them from being killed by their physician. King underestimated the threat faced by the general public because he worked so closely with quacks in the past.  At the end of the day, the failure of NEMA to clarify its stance on medical regulation may have hindered state and local eclectic medical societies combat partisan legislation. These societies would have been required to fend for themselves. NEMA’s official policy would have encouraged skepticism by eclectics, but it failed to provide them with any guidance. The local societies would have had to determine for themselves whether proposed regulations were potentially beneficial or undesirable. Additionally, it would have been much more difficult these societies to effectively lobby the state legislatures without alternative regulatory plans. Additionally, if local and eclectic societies adopted the resolves passed at the national convention they would have only muddled their position on medical legislation in their discussions with state legislators. Notwithstanding the shrillness of King’s address, he did make a legitimate point. Medical legislation did threaten the survival of eclectic medical sect. Over time, licensed eclectic physicians began to define themselves as physicians and not as eclectics. When AMA changed its policy and invited eclectic and homeopathic physicians into its organization, eclecticism lost much of its vitality. Eventually the distinctions between eclectics and allopaths disappeared and eclectics were folded into the outstretched arms of the AMA.<references/>