Changes

While Numbers argued that the development of the Irregular sects undermined the status of the Regulars, it is just as likely that the ineffectiveness of traditional Regular medicine and the ambiguous benefits of early Regular medical science spurred the expansion of these new sects.<ref>Numbers, ''Sickness'', 226.</ref> If Regulars had demonstrated to the public that their therapies were successful, patients might not have searched for alternatives. John B. Beck wrote a series of articles in 1847 and 1848 in the New York Journal of Medicine, which argued that heroic treatments such as blistering, mercury, and bloodletting were dangerous and potentially lethal, especially when employed by reckless physicians.<ref>Cited by Rothstein, ''American Physicians'', 180.</ref> Beck challenged the basic tenets and undermined Regular medicine in general.

The gradual shift away from heroic treatments could have also undermined public trust in Regular medicine. While heroic methods were dangerous, the public would not necessarily have known that. All they would see was a major shift in how they were treated by their doctors. Homeopathy, Eclecticism, and later Osteopathy and Christian Science, gained adherents because of the growing public skepticism of the efficacy of Regular medicine. Homeopaths presented the greatest threat to Regulars because they persuasively argued that their therapeutic methods were potentially more scientific than those of the Regulars and they obtained credibility comparable to Regular physicians.