At the time of the passage of the act of 1813, and for many years afterward, nearly all of the physicians in New York State practised in accordance with the theories and precepts of what is now called the regular or allopathic school of medicine. That act provided that the physicians in the respective counties of the State of New York should meet in the respective counties and organize county medical societies. As a consequence of the fact that the physicians of that day were chiefly of the allopathic school, they necessarily obtained the control of the county medical societies and State medical societies. Hence it became difficult, if not impossible, for physicians who wished to practise upon other theories and tenets than those obtaining in that school, to obtain licenses to do so. With the growth of the homœopathic school of medicine and the eclectic school of medicine, came applications to the legislature asking for those practising under those schools the same rights and privileges of organizing county and State societies as had been extended to physicians generally by the act of 1813; so that in 1857, by Chapter 384, the legislature of New York State enacted that the homœopathic physicians might meet in their respective counties and organize county medical societies, with boards of censors having the same powers and privileges which were granted by the act of 1813; and by other laws similar privileges were granted to the so-called eclectic school. After the passage of the act of 1844, down to about 1874, as hereinbefore stated, there was no limitation upon the right to practise medicine or surgery in this State. The inharmonious and injurious effect of such policy of the State becoming manifest, the legislature, by Chapter 436 of Laws of 1874, required all persons desiring to practise medicine or surgery to obtain a certificate as to their qualifications from the censors of some one of these medical societies. By the Laws of 1880, Chapter 513, additional and more extensive and particular provisions were made in reference to this matter, and all the physicians then practising were required, on or before the time limited in the act, to file with the county clerks of their respective counties their licenses to practise granted by the censors of their county medical societies, or a diploma of some chartered school of medicine; and those persons who desired to become licensed who were not in practice were likewise required to obtain similar licenses or certificates and file the same. A diploma of a chartered school or medical college was given the same effect as a license issued by the censors.