While we view traditional medical care as the norm, it was not always that way. Throughout most of the 1800's Americans chose alternative providers more frequently than orthodox doctors; their outcomes were better, their ideas based on common sense, their focus patient oriented, and even their fees lower. One of the primary goals of the AMA was to snuff out alternative philosophies, especially homeopathy. We will discuss these alternative ideas and how they impacted the medical landscape.

With orthodox medicine in disarray, with no standards of education, and with alternative medical philosophies ruling the roost, several prominent orthodox doctors came together to forma national organization to represent the needs of orthodoxy, the American Medical Association (AMA). Founded in 1847 largely by Nathan Davis, the AMA had several goals: To promote licensing requirements, to standardize education, and to provide a collective where all orthodox doctors could gather. Although formed as a democratic union of orthodox doctors, the organization from the start sought to stamp a unifying dogma upon its members and the nation, one that included the medical racial script. In fact, the script helped to congeal doctors under a single rubric of medical science, one shared by doctors North and South. Weak from the start, the AMA hobbled along for many decades before emerging as the predominant Progressive force in American healthcare, one destined to change the system into the one we know today.

After the Revolution, American was severed from the European seat of orthodox medical power. American orthodox doctors were forced to establish their own schools, their own dogma, and their own leaders. Much of what glued orthodox doctors together and led to copious research was the medical racial script, much of which was inscribed in the standard medical school curriculum North and South. However, during the Republican period, Americans eschewed labels, rules, and favoritism. This translated into an ideal that anyone who thought themselves to be a doctor could be, without any desire to regulate physician education or practice. For instance, no states maintained licensing requirements despite an orthodox push to do so. Alternative medical ideas flourished. We will discuss how orthodox medicine responded and how the American School--researches focused on racial medicine--lofted America into some degree of intellectual independence.