15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{Mediawiki:AmNative}}
[[File:The_City_of_San_Francisco,_panorama_by_Currier_&_Ives,_1878.jpg|thumbnail|left|380px|San Francisco 1878]]
Finally, in March 1876, after a year of debate in the legislature, the California Assembly and Senate passed an act to “Regulate the Practice of Medicine in the State of California.”<ref> “Annual Address by the President”, A.B. Nixon, M. D., <i>Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of California During the Years of 1875-1876</i>, (Sacramento, 1876): 25, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref> It permitted graduates of medical schools to practice without being tested by an examining board, but it differed somewhat from other licensing laws passed the 1870s, because it authorized “each State Medical Society, incorporated and inactive existence” when the bill was passed to appoint seven people to separate boards of examiners.
====Efforts to Amend the Licensing Law====
One of the most consistent problems faced by licensing laws was that as soon as they were passed, special interest groups immediately sought to amend them in the next legislative session. Sometimes these amendments were proposed by Regular or Irregular medical societies, but often they were proposed to benefit a class of medical specialists who were disadvantaged by the existing law. There was a wide range of amendments proposed in states around the country to help itinerant physicians, unrecognized specialties, or some other group. California was no different.
Even though the law was passed with overwhelming support from the state’s Regulars and Irregulars, Ira Oatman, Chairman of the Committee on Medical Legislation for the California State Medical Society, fought tooth and nail “to defeat” subsequent legislation that upset the original compromise. Oatman often worked with several other state medical societies to defeat any and all proposals to amend the licensing law from the Regular society. In 1878, Oatman was faced with multiple bills that sought to upend the state’s law. There were so many proposed alterations and amendments to the licensing, and Oatman admitted that he struggled to keep abreast of all the proposals. Oatman’s struggle was not unique. After licensing laws were passed, legislators constantly sought to tinker with them.'
<div class="portal" style='float:right; width:35%'>====Related Articles===={{#dpl:category=Medical History|ordermethod=firstedit|order=descending|count=12}}</div>
The California law not only required examinations of all applicants, the new law explicitly, but it created separate Regular, Eclectic, and Homeopathic boards. Each of these boards was explicitly tied to the state board for each sect. Additionally, the medical societies retained the right to change the members without interference from the governor’s office. This effectively prevented any additional medical sects from creating their own medical examining boards, thereby establishing a medical cartel among the three dominant sects. Additionally, the law was altered to give the medical societies more money for examinations. Physicians who submitted false diplomas would be fined an additional fifteen dollars by the board. The examining boards also were required to refuse certificates to any applicant accused of unprofessional conduct. Finally, itinerant vendors were required to pay for one-hundred dollars licenses if they wanted to sell any “drugs, nostrum, ointment or appliance of any kind intended for the treatment of disease.” <ref><i>Laws Regulating the Practice of Medicine in the State of California, Passed April Third, 1876, and April First, 1878</i>, (San Francisco, A. L. Bancroft and Company, 1878): 7–11, http://books.google.com/ebooks.</ref> Essentially, Oatman and the CSMS were successful in achieving almost everything they wanted from the 1878 amendments. Additionally, the 1878 bill enabled more rigorous enforcement of the licensing law.