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Eugene Holt Eastman was one of the first Osteopaths prosecuted for practicing Osteopathy. Eastman was unique because he was tried in two separate states, Illinois and Ohio, for practicing Osteopathy in two consecutive years. He was a graduate of the newly formed American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri. <ref> Eastman v. Ohio, 6 Ohio Dec. 296, 297 (1897).</ref>As a practicing Osteopath, Eastman’s treatment “consisted wholly of rubbing and manipulating the affected parts with his hands and fingers, and flexing and moving the limbs of the patient in various ways.” <ref> Eastman v. People, 71 Ill. App. 236, 238 (1896).</ref> Eastman argued to the Illinois Board of Health that he was not a practicing physician because he did not prescribe medicine or use instruments to treat his patients. <ref> Eastman, 238.</ref> The Illinois board ignored his arguments and determined that he was a physician. The Illinois board ruled that Eastman was a physician because he stated that his treatments could cure a “long list of diseases” relying only on the “manipulation, flexing, rubbing, extension” of his client’s limbs. Both the Illinois board and the court of appeal simply defined medicine as “the art of understanding diseases and curing or relieving them when possible.” <ref>Eastman, 239.</ref> Under this definition, Eastman was found to be practicing medicine and his conviction was upheld.

After the Illinois board’s decision, Eastman left Illinois and moved to Akron, Ohio, late in 1896. In Akron, he continued his Osteopathic practice, but within one month he was charged with practicing medicine without a license. Contrary to the Illinois Court of Appeals, the Court of Common Pleas in Ohio did not believe that Eastman was a practicing physician. The court refused to find that Osteopaths, clairvoyants, mind healers, faith curers, massage therapists, and Christian Scientists were physicians under the Ohio licensing statute. If the legislature sought to ban or regulate these practices, the court argued it would need to do so explicitly, as Iowa had done.<ref> Eastman v. Ohio, 299-301.</ref> In 1899, the Ohio Supreme Court in State v. Liffring supported the earlier lower court decision in the Eastman case and confirmed that Osteopathy did not constitute the practice of medicine in Ohio. A grand jury indicted William Liffring for practicing with a license, but went to circuit couret and quashed the indictment. The state sought to overturn the lower court’s decision and prosecute Liffring for violating the state’s licensing law. Prosecutors argued that medicine had “a wider significance than has the word drug.” They also cited “The Ohio Osteopath,” which was published by the faculty of the Ohio Institute of Osteopathy. This publication identified fifty diseases that could be treated successfully by Osteopathy. The court disagreed and found that the practice of medicine required the use of “drug or medicine.”

The American Osteopathic Association developed a model law that was similar to licensing laws used to create Regular, Eclectic, and Homeopathic boards. Osteopathic physicians throughout the country pushed for licensing based on this model. While they did not always succeed, as historian Norman Gevitz pointed out, this effort was fairly effective. Despite pushback from the three major medical sects, Osteopaths secured practice rights in thirty-nine states and created seventeen independent boards around the country by 1913. By 1923, Osteopaths secured licensing in forty-six states and about half of those states created separate osteopathic boards. Osteopaths established a secure foothold in America and have never relinquished it. Contrarily, after the major sects established unified boards and the AMA admitted Irregulars to its ranks, Eclecticism and Homeopathy began their slow decline.