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In 1870, the Legislature created a California State Board of Heath with the goal of looking “after the vital interest and physical condition of the people.” The Board was composed of seven physicians from Sacramento and five doctors from other parts of the state. The legislation did not bar Irregulars from serving on the board nor did it require it. Still, all of the members of the inaugural board were Regulars. One of the chief responsibilities of the Board was to propose bills to the legislature that could improve public health.<ref> Logan, Thomas, “Report of the Permanent Secretary”, <i>First Biennial Report of the State Board of Health of California for the Years 1870-1871</i> (Sacramento, D.W. Gelwicks, State Printer, 1871), 16-17, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref>
In 1874, Thomas Logan, one of the most prominent members of the CSMS and the permanent secretary of the California State Board of Health, began an earnest effort to enact medical licensing in California. Logan made a strong case at the 1874 California Medical Society meeting that it was crucial for physicians to began to assert control “over admission to its ranks.” He also argued that the disputes among the sects not only appeared to be “useless and unseemly” to the public, but they were counterproductive because these disputes “prevented or defeated all efforts to obtain legislation that would have … protected the people against medical frauds and ignorance.” This conflict had weakened an already diminished profession. “Physicians of moral worth and personal dignity” were reduced to opposing any measure that would allow them to be categorized as a physician along with the numerous “shams and frauds” littering their profession. Logan argued that as long “as the demand” for licensing “is made irrespective of all so-called schools of medicine” the Legislature would be unable to “refuse.” Logan called on the CSMS to support a regulatory bill that would create an independent board of medical examiners that would license all applicants and criminalize the practice of medicine without a license.<ref><i>Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of California During the Year 1873 and 1874</i>, (Sacramento, H.A. Weaver, Printer, 1874): 49-61, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref>
Logan was not the only person calling for the creation of medical licensing in California. The <i>Los Angeles Herald</i> advocated on behalf of medical licensing on July 31, 1874. The editorial asked why ship pilots were required to secure licenses while physicians “were permitted to practice medicine without written evidence of their right to kill or cure the human family[.]” The editors argued that unlike lawyers, “the ignorance and efficiency of the quack doctor” were not apparent until “one or more lives have been sacrificed.” The Herald demanded that the state of California needed to require physicians to get a license in order to “suspend operations” by “these murderers.”<ref> “Show Your Diplomas,” <i>Los Angeles Herald</i>, Volume 2, Number 103, July 31, 1874, 2.</ref>
