Changes

in In the United States during the second half of the Nineteenth Century, states passed a series of laws that slowly established a medical licensing system. <ref>Portions of this article are published here with the permission of the copyright holder, Sandvick, Clinton (2016)<i>''Defining the Practice of Medicine: Licensing American Physicians, 1870-1907.'', unpublished manuscript.</i></ref> Elite Regular, Homeopathic and Eclectic worked to together to eliminate medical practices that they found ridiculous. After medical licensing boards were established, they began to target marginalized medical practitioners for illegally practicing medicine. Interestingly, one of the groups targeted by these boards were Christian Scientists even though they did not practice medicine in the traditional sense. Instead they used religion and metaphysics to fight illness. While they did not act like doctors, they often accepted money from the people that they were treating. By the end of the 19th Century, medical licensing boards began were aggressively filing criminal actions against Christian Scientists.

Christian Scientists were never able to acquire the same type of legislative protections for their practice rights as other groups such as Osteopaths. Arguably, they did not need protection from medical licensing laws because state courts were less willing to rule that they practiced medicine. Unlike Osteopaths who did everything in their power to look, act, and behave like traditional doctors, Christian Scientists’ practices were dramatically different. As Osteopathic medical schools began to teach students about surgery and obstetrics during the first decade of the twentieth century, Christian Scientists still focused on religion and metaphysics.<ref>Gevitz, Norman, <i>The DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America</i>, 2nd edition, (John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1982, 2004), 69-70.</ref> Osteopathy quickly began to adopt aspects of Regular medicine, and it was even wryly noted by a Regular medical journal that the American School of Osteopathy recommended a book list to its students where one-hundred-and-twelve of the one-hundred-and-eighteen books were written by Regulars.<ref> “Another Phase,” <i>California State Journal of Medicine</i>, Vol. V, No.2, (1907): 20, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref> Even more problematic was that when Christian Scientists treated patients, they did not behave as doctors and their practices did not resemble traditional medical care. Even though Osteopaths did not utilize drugs, they physically performed active services such as manipulating limbs, joints, and muscles. The differences between the two specialities were stark.

[[File:Christian_Science_Church_and_Reflection,_Boston,_Massachusetts.jpeg|thumbnail|320px370px|left|First Church of Christ Scientist, Boston, MA]]