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[[File:Annual_announcement_of_lectures_at_Toland_Hall,_Medical_Department_of_the_University_of_California,_San_Francisco,_California_(1874)_(14597726398).jpg|thumbnail|left|650px350px|Toland Hall, Medical Department of UC San Francisco 1874]]
In the 1870s, physicians across the United States pushed state legislatures to implement medical licensing. At this time, all doctors in the the United States were unlicensed.<ref>Portions of this article were originally part of the following work: Sandvick, Clinton. <i>Licensing American Physicians: 1870-1907</i>, Dissertation, University of Oregon, 2014</ref> Additionally, the United States was composed of a crazy patchwork of physicians from different sects competing with each other. The three largest sects were regulars (traditional M.D.s), homeopaths, and eclectics (a mixture of Thomsonians and disaffected regulars). Eclectics, homeopaths and other non-M.D. physicians were often referred to as irregulars. These sects represented completely different approaches to medicine.