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{{Mediawiki:kindleoasis}}__NOTOC__[[File:Galenus.jpg|thumbnail|275px|left|Galen of Pergamon By Georg Paul Busch]]Nineteenth-century medicine was characterized by constant competition among three major medical sects: Regulars, Eclectics, and Homeopaths.<ref>Article is a portion of an unpublished dissertation by Sandvick, Clinton (20132016)<i>''Defining the Practice of Medicine: Licensing American Physicians: 1865, 1870-1907.'' University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. This portion of the dissertation is reproduced here with the permission of the author</i>unpublished manuscript.</ref> Each of these medical sects not only meaningfully disagreed on how to treat illnesses and diseases, but sought to portray their type of practice as the most effective and scientific. Arguably none of the three sects was superior to the others, but their adherents concluded that their sectarian beliefs were better than their competitors.  Regulars were the inheritors of Galenic tradition and were the largest and most established of the three sects. Homeopaths represented a new approach to medicine with a new unified medical system developed in the eighteenth century. Homeopaths were quite successful in the United States and represented the biggest threat to the Regulars’ dominance of medicine. The Eclectics were true to their name. They were a diverse sect composed of dissident Regulars, herbalists, and medical reformers. While the Regulars were the largest sect, their members constantly worried that they may lose their place at the head of the table of American medicine. In the later portion of the 20th century, Regular physicians would constantly lobbying state legislatures to create medical licensing to solidify their place as the preeminent medical sect.

Eclectic physicians differed from both Homeopaths and Regulars. Eclectic physicians were the indirect descendants of the preexisting botanic movement known as Thomsonians. Unlike the Thomsonians, however they did not just provide herbal remedies. They incorporated herbal remedies into their practice, but they also worked as surgeons and utilized some Regular medical practices. As Thomsonianism was displaced by Homeopathy as the second largest medical sect, the remaining professional Thomsonsian practitioners allied with disgruntled Regulars and other medical reformers to form Eclectic medicine in 1830s and 1840s. Eclectics were a discordant group. They were extremely independent and predisposed to oppose any type governmental regulation. Unlike Homeopathy, Eclectics did not have a rigid medical orthodoxy. Eclecticism was true to its name; it was a mishmash of different types of physicians who practiced medicine as they saw fit.  Unlike traditional Thomsonians, Eclectics encouraged medical education, and they took a far more pragmatic approach to medical treatment.<ref>Kaufman, ''Homeopathy in America'', fn. 114.</ref> Eclectics saw themselves as reformers and dissidents from traditional European medical tradition. Eclectics rejected the four humoral theory and sought to end “the vast amount of human suffering, the anguish of soul, the premature decay, and death, resulting from this Paganism [Galenism] in medicine.”<ref> ''Transactions of the National Eclectic Medical Association for the Years 1870 and 1871'' (Geo. R. Yeates & Co., New York, 1872): 142.</ref> Their objections to Regular medicine were well-founded. Many Eclectics were originally trained in Regular medical schools or by Regular physicians, but became disenchanted with heroic medicine and shifted towards a more pragmatic approach to health care.

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.

By 1870, these three national medical organizations along with their local and state affiliates began the thirty-year battle over dominance of American medicine. While the Regulars represented the largest number of physicians in the country, they were constantly concerned that the Homeopaths and Eclectics threatened their dominance. Principally, these organizations sought to establish or maintain their power through the passage of licensing laws that benefited their sects throughout the United States. All of these organizations played a critical role in shaping and passing the new licensing laws. While the differences among the three sects over medical licensing played out in legislatures, all of these organizations faced internal dissent and strife that complicated licensing efforts and fractured previously unified sects. ==References==<references/> [[Category:Wikis]] [[Category:United States History]] [[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category:Medical History]] {{Contributors}}