Contagion and disease are common byproducts of conflict. In Jim Down’s work Sick from Freedom, the author describes the effect of sickness on the freedman population following their emancipation from slavery. The lack of effort on behalf of the United States federal government to mitigate the spread of disease led to one of the largest outbreaks of disease, and illustrated the unpreparedness of the government to deal with the newly freed slaves. This essay will argue that the role of the federal government in controlling the outbreak of disease was poorly realized due to the lack of organization within the federal government, the state of medicine being inadequate in dealing with the crisis, and that the response issued was inadequate in providing…show more content… The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln in 1863 “contained no provisions for how [the slaves] would survive in the midst of the war” (p19). This means that the federal government did not have a ready plan of what to do with the newly freed slaves, implying that the proclamation was not prioritizing helping freedmen but instead functioned to destabilize the South. Furthermore, emancipation highlighted the weakness of existing institutions that had difficulty with keeping soldiers healthy without the added pressure of freedmen escaping the south. For example, the “lack of institutional structure” to stop the spread of disease or movement of freedmen resulted in the disease going unchecked within the region (p165). The lack of institutions to deal with the growing problem illustrates the lack of organization within the federal government. In turn, the lack of organization generates inefficiency and in turn compounds the spread of illness as the sick are not given proper medical care or…show more content… However the effort was insufficient and too late in the making. The Freedman Bureau’s hospitals and almshouses provided a safety from exposure and offered the bare necessities of survival. However there were not enough doctors in the hospitals to effectively care for the ill, neither were there enough almshouses to accommodate the transient freedmen population. The effort was instead led by local physicians that worked on “slowing down the proliferation of the virus through quarantines” in order counter the disease (p108). The quarantines helped to slow down the movement of the sick. By 1866 the Bureau transitioned to utilizing the “1864 practice of mandatory vaccination” in order to combat smallpox (p110). The return of this practice allowed the government to actively make an effort against the epidemic despite the low amount of vaccines available. The intervention of the federal government to stop the disease was largely brought on by the “Freedpeople’s political mobilization for better health conditions” (p167). This resulted in the federal government taking up the matter of the health of the emancipated as a key part of ending the health crisis. An added effect is that it expanded the power of the federal government and its role in intervening in state
