>> thank all of you for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> [indistinct chatter] >> we are back now to our live coverage at gettysburg college in pennsylvania for a conference on the end of the civil war. jim downs will discuss the medical crisis of emancipation. this is live coverage on "american history tv," on c-span3. >> [indistinct chatter]

>> [indistinct chatter]

>> tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern we will be reentering this entire symposium. some of the topics included ulysses s grant and the meaning of appomattox, chamberlain repeats appomattox, and lincoln and the press. finally, what we are about to hear shortly, the medical crisis of emancipation. >> [indistinct chatter]

>> [indistinct chatter] >> you are watching live coverage of gettysburg college civil war institute's annual summer coverage. we will also have live coverage tomorrow starting at 8:30 a.m. eastern continuing this conference. the topics tomorrow will include consequences of the civil war the 16th connecticut regiments final year of war, and a

discussion called treason and loyalty in the civil war era. that starts tomorrow, sunday, at 8:30 a.m. eastern time here on c-span three. >> [indistinct chatter] >> all right. good afternoon. as you know, i am, go. -- im pete carmichael -- i mam pete carmichael. it is my honor to introduce professor jim downs. he has been on the faculty since 2006. he earned his phd at columbia university correct? he also worked for barbara fields. and his research interests are history of race and medicine in 19th-century america. and his recent book, which we have on the stage here, "sick from freedom: african-american

us illness and suffering during reconstruction." it considers the previously untold story of the devastating health consequences of emancipation and have for many, new found freedom also brought direct confrontations with sickness, disease, and health. i should add that jim is going back to school next fall. he just got a fellowship to go to harvard university. and this is a new direction hello, is that correct? jim will be going back this fall, back to harvard university. let me welcome jim downs. [applause] dr. downs: all right well, thank you so much for having me here. i'm excited. for the opportunity to participate in this institute and to talk about medical consequences of emancipation.

during the civil war and reconstruction. as a way to begin, i'm going to have three major points that i want to focus on today. the first is the politics of disease. the second is how we can think about doing the history of medicine as a detective story. and the third piece is uncovering the lost, unknown history of the smallpox economic -- epidemic that began in washington dc and culminated in the south in 1865. in order to begin this talk, i want to -- i want to sort of lay the framework for the intersection of race and disease and sort of talk about the ways in which 19th-century americans understood the relationship between race and disease before the civil war started.

in the antebellum era proslavery thinkers believed that there was a relationship between medicine and race. to that and, they often -- end, they often argued that if in fact slaves ran away from slavery that they were mentally ill. they also argued that slaves were unable to take care of themselves. so, part of their sort of opposition to abolition, which argued for the emancipation of slaves, was that slaves were better off under the rule of southern planters. if they were independent, they would grow sick, they would be dependent, and they would go instinct. on this particular level, from the vantage point of the proslavery south, there was definitely some thinking about how people conceptualize race and medicine.

if we turn to the north and we look at how abolitionists dealt with this, at that particular time, they, too, understood a certain relationship between race and medicine. and they sort of denied -- did not necessarily believe that blake -- black people were not meant for freedom. instead, they pointed to slavery that in many ways cause people to become sick. it is important to understand this context for when the war starts. when the war actually begins in 1861 disease explodes. and we know this from many civil war historians. and people have been talking about this for many years. there were diseases like pneumonia, dysentery, small amounts of smallpox breaking out among the troops. in fact, some have argued that over 600,000 people that died from illness -- let me get this

right -- of all the people that died during the civil war, more died from illness than from battle. now, this statistic was recently updated with a very important yet controversial article a couple of years ago where again, a historian did work that proved that the death toll was higher. in all of these accounts, the death toll, what we are seeing is illness not from the battlefield but from the cap site. so what we need to think about is when emancipation first unfolds, freed slaves enter into an environment that is devastated with illness and sickness. and instead of responding to the sort of illness and sickness that is happening among freed slaves, it eventually sort of makes its way into the very politically charged context

which i am describing during the antebellum era. namely that people are saying black people becoming sick during the war as either a result of the fact that they are unable to handle the challenges of emancipation, or from the abolitionists' perspective, that they are suffering from the problems of war. in many respects, the health of freed slaves has again become politicized. so historians have also struggled with this. 19th-century americans struggle with this. in the early part of the 20th century, they struggle with how to talk about this question of illness during the civil war among black people. as some of you might know, the school who was one of the first chroniclers saw these episodes of sickness in the historical record and like proslavery

thinkers began to blame the high rate of illness among newly emancipated slaves on the fact that they were lazy. unable to handle the challenges of emancipation. in many ways, the school propagated, they advanced that proslavery logic. after that idea of sickness in the record, in the archives, as a result of either a biased medical system or a racist logic or if -- potentially both in many ways clouded how historians understood the question of illness during this period among formerly enslaved people. by the 1960's and 1970's inspired by the civil rights movement, do boy -- dubois, a

brand-new bunch of historians came along and they wanted to investigate the question of reconstruction. they didn't believe in this argument that he put forward that black people were lazy. they didn't believe the argument that they were feckless, that they were incompetent. instead, they put forward a notion, a portrayal, of freed -- freed people as robust political actors. sort of invincible. able to take on the challenges of emancipation. and when they saw comments, remarks, details in the archival records about the health conditions of freed slaves, they dismissed it. they dismissed it because they believed that, in many ways illustrated proslavery and the

19th century. they dismissed it because they believed it was a consequence of the school. and so as a result, in the 1980's and the 1990's, in the early 2000, the image that we get of freed people in 1865 is of healthy robust, independent herculean almost, ably bodied people willing to take on the challenges of emancipation. and what we have forgotten is the extent to which the were created biological crisis. a biological crisis that left many soldiers both on the north and south sick. and a war that created a massive biological crisis for newly freed people. given this context, the next

question is -- how can we find evidence of what actually happened during this period? how can we ask we begin to unearth archival evidence that is not -- that has not been compromised by either proslavery thoughtthought or even abolitionist thought? that is the reason why i'm going to get into the second part of the talk and explain why i think during the history of medicine during the civil war and reconstruction is like -- is like following the sort of steps that a detective would take in order to find out information about this period. so i am going to turn back to the antebellum period and. jacobs. perfect. it is for a point. harriet jacobs was born in slavery in north carolina long before the war. as some of you may know, she

publishes this riveting story of what it meant to escape from slavery and then live in her grandmother's attic for a number of years in order to be close to her children, pretending that she had run away. she eventually leaves the south and makes it to the north. while she is in the north, she comes into contact with many abolitionists. and abolitionists like post child, women's activists that come most out of rochester, they encourage her to publish her own autobiography. they know frederick douglass had sold his biography and it was definitely supported and had advanced the abolitionist movement, so they want a woman's story. she publishes it and child rights the editorial note to the book. so the book is widely circulated. it is part of an abolitionist

network. it is ready northern reform circles, but after the war, it sort of falls by the wayside. by the 1880's and 1890's, people began to doubt if harriet jacobs ever wrote that the book. and you can get this book anywhere today. the prose is absolutely beautiful. the writing style is excellent. the word choice is really impressive. so it is because of this because she got this begin of what many people understand to be a black vernacular slavery they dismiss it. they say this is a modern day case of rachel dolezal. this is a white woman who wrote pretending she was black. there is no way that harriet jacobs wrote this. it is a white woman pretending she is black in order to publish it. so in the 19 30's, 40's, 50's

completely dismissed. however, among black circles, it is continuing late mimeographed and circulated among black people and it is red. it is not until 1980 that a literary scholar begins reading through the black newspapers, the christian recorder, the other sort of periodicals published by the quakers in new york and in philadelphia. and she begins piecing together this information. she reads about a woman named -- remember her name is harriet jacobs -- but when she publishes it, she publishes it under the pseudonym linda. so she reads linda jacobs, sort of a hybrid of the name. or you may have heard of this woman named harriet who is working among the three people,

she is linda. so she is piecing together the stories of how harriet jacobs during the civil war and after was working in contraband caps on -- camps -- that grew up adjacent to union camps where free slaves migrated to once they were emancipated. and they were living in these camps and they had very little to eat, very poor shelter, they suffered from malnutrition. so what happened was northern reformers, having this idea that slavery would, impact, sort of lead to full fitness and ship, sent women from the north, from pennsylvania, new york, new jersey boston, to go into the south and establish schools for these people. once they got there, they realized they were suffering from high rates of sickness and disease. the same diseases and illnesses that plagued the adjacent union

camp. so jacobs was sent to these camps in order to establish a school, which see eventually does. but before she could do that, she must first respond to the health conditions of the freed slaves. so in these letters, she writes about their conditions. she writes about their suffering. she writes about the epidemics that swept through this community. so, how does this connect to the health conditions of freed people? how does this tell us, a question about how during the history of medicine is a detective story? well, when i came to graduate school, i was fascinated with harriet jacobs, i was fascinated with the story that proved she actually wrote her own diary, i was riveted by the story of

fugitive slaves, and i started to work with them on harriet jacobs' biography. and in reading through the newspaper accounts, letters, and other correspondence of jacobs' life in alexandria in 1863 and 1864, i begin to uncover numerous details about the sick and unhealthy conditions of freed slaves during this period. so when i brought this to my advisor, the academic team, the historiography, they said, no, no, that is just proslavery thought. ignore it. then when i tried to contextualize these sources within the historiography, people said, what are you doing advancing the school? proving that black people are unable to handle the challenges of freedom?

then when i placed it within the context of the new civil rights historiography, we can't talk about the problems of health because it could potentially dismantle this notion of freed people being robust, political agents. however, i took my cue from jacobs. for decades, people believed that she was a liar. people believed she was fake. people believed she was inauthentic. but she was writing about the health conditions of freed people and she was explaining the various problems and struggles that they encountered and using her as my muse, it opened up the archives in completely new and fascinating and rich ways. so what i began to do is i began focusing on the contraband camps. they essentially are these areas that are set up -- that are sort

of adjacent to union camps. this camp -- this is a better illustration. this is actually a pretty decent contraband camp because in many ways they have tents, they have some form of shelter, some form of resources. what happens is congregated in these camps exacerbate the spread of disease. why? another footnote. in the mid-19th century physicians have not yet reached the conclusion that will, with microbiology and with bacteriology. that is just a long way of saying they don't understand germ theory. so they don't understand that in an environment like this, people -- you could spread disease very quickly. in the 19th century, people

believed you were sick because of your social status or because of a moral or ethical region -- reason. perhaps you are a sinner. perhaps you are getting sick because you are shielding out the light of the creator. the reality of it is that they haven't yet figured out how overcrowded mess, lack of ventilation, and other issues lead to the spread of disease. and so as a result, disease begins to spread a lot in these camps. these issues are actually a lot better than some of the sort of desolate conditions in which freed slaves encountered in -- immediately in 1865. one of the ways -- i am just going to give you an example that a give my students because i think it is helpful in order to understand germ theory because i think we can understand germ theory as a

concept, but emotionally and personally, we may not get it. at the university of pennsylvania, i remember my professor telling me the story she said that before the civil war in dormitories, which you are all in dormitories now there was one toothbrush per floor. [laughter] why? wide you cringe? [laughter] you cringe because you have a concept of germs. you understand the possibility of an invisible bacteria even though you can't see it. similarly, we have to realize to get into the vantage point of 19th century americans, they don't see how sickness can spread. instead, they look at this image and they see black people. they see black people living in poverty. and then they fall back on a claim that people fell back on

in the 18th of 17 century that it is something about being black, something about race that explains illness. in order for me to explain the -- the problems of illness during this period i am going to tell you a story for my book about joseph miller. joseph miller and his family escaped from slavery someplace around kentucky. they make it to cap nelson -- ca mp nelson, a refugee camp for emancipated slaves. and there is someplace in november of 1864, someplace around 800 to 1000 free people congregating in this region. and the united states army has said we realize that you have come here, we have very limited resources, but if the men in your family well and list in the army as contractors or even as soldiers, we will provide used

tents, shelter, and you will be able to qualify for rations. so joseph miller thinks this is a great idea and decides to enlist in the army so that he and his wife, isabella, and therefore children could get -- their four children could get some type of basic necessities. on a cold winter morning -- everyone that i has read has discovered november 24 as freezing -- a mounted guard arrives at the miller's tent and he has a rifle in his hand. and he orders miller and his wife and their four children to get into one of these wagons that are leaving the camps and expelling the freed slaves from this region. and miller turns to the soldier and says, i can't get over my

family to allow them to go with you right now. i understands the camp is being dismantled, but my son is very sick. economic the journey. and -- he cannot make the journey. he points the gun at the family and says i will shoot every last one of them if you don't get into the wagon right now. so miller has no other choice but to tell isabella and his children to boarding wagon and to sort of -- board a wagon and sort of go out into the unknown kentucky territory. later that day, he searches for his family. according to his affidavit, he finds them in a boarding house belonging to the quote unquote colored people. as he walks in, he sees a group of freed slaves congregating around the fire and he notices how cold it is in the room. and he looks around the room and he can't see his family.

finally, he spots them in a corner. he sees isabella, his other children, and he asks how she is doing. and she said that their son, who is seven years old, froze to death on the journey from camp nelson to this unknown boarding house. with that, joseph miller has no -- no idea what to do with his son. his family had, and again according to his affidavit, not a morsel to eat. he then must carry his seven-year-old son, who is quite -- not an infant, not a two-year-old, a seven-year-old. he then has to carry his seven-year-old son's dead body 20 miles back to the union camp with the hope of being able to barry his son. -- bury his son. remember, this is november, the

ground is frozen. i always remember this moment of what it must be like for him, to carry his son back to a union camp -- a camp that one represented freedom and opportunity and now it represents the place of death, disease, and starvation. so miller does barry -- we don't know where or what else happens. that is where the story sort of ended for me. i found the story in 2002, 2003. up until 2010, that is all i knew. new archival evidence developed and that is why it is so exciting to do civil war history because we are constantly uncovering new documents constantly learning more about the period. what i learned was on november 24, joseph miller's son died. by december 1, his eldest son died. a few days later, his youngest daughter died.

by christmas, his wife died in and then by mid-january there is a note that joseph miller died. it is unclear if joseph miller died from one of the unknown camp diseases that killed so many soldiers or he died from a broken heart.

we know about the labor and land division that help them negotiate contracts and distribute land, but few people talk about the medical division. the medical division establish 40 hospitals across the south. in employed over 120 physicians,

and it provided medical care to an estimated one million newly freed slaves. this institution, this division, began in 1865 and lasted until about 1871-1872. i explained more in my book. what is interesting, some of you may know, is howard university. howard university hospital began as a friedman cost at all. of the many different hospitals that closed during this time, that one survive. one of the major points that the medical division had to respond to was a smallpox epidemic. not only were free slaves suffering from illness starvation dysentery, and other diseases but a smallpox

epidemic breaks out in washington, d.c. in 1862. by the early part of 1863, it spreads to the upper south. by 1864-1865 it is in the lower south in the carolinas, and moves west to the mississippi valley and louisiana. what we begin to notice is the number of black people far outnumbered the number of white people who become sick with smallpox. it is very easy to fall back on a race of logic -- racist logic. 19th-century newspaper reporters and doctors see images like this and immediately blamed the health condition on black people. in fact, i have a few quotations. "the nation" wrote, there has

been considerable speculation as to the effect of freedom on this physical condition of the former slave. by many, they thought the ultimate fate would be that of the indian. throughout the 19th century what we were beginning to see is a huge mortality facing the black population. one of the ways said 19th-century journalists rationalize it is they compare it to the extinction of native americans. they argue, "the new york times" argues that like his brother, the indian, the negro will soon melts away in freedom. yet, the reason why many freed slaves were dying was not

because of the pro-slave logic that they could not handle freedom or that they were becoming distinct like native americans, or something about their race that made them sick. it was that they were living in these camps where they had very little access to basic necessities. they were living in places where they were unable to actually find employment. one of the things that we have to think about is in some of these camps, the number of men -- the number of women and children outnumbered the number of men. so that the men would sometimes enlist in the army, work as construction workers or possibly soldiers, but what would happen to the women and children? they were left in these places like the mill, where they did not have access to the basic necessities. what people began to see was a

disparity between white and black populations. now, where white people becoming ill as well? yes. many white people became sick during the civil war and reconstruction. they were also expelled, and also in many cases, refugees. many white people had access to the charitable hospitals voluntary associations, and other civic groups that whites in the south organized to help white people. a 19th-century house that used to be for everyone would start to only allow white people to receive basic support. as a result, you would see statistics that would say, for example in georgia, 5611 people were suffering from small parts

as -- smallpox, as compared to much less whites. the reason is often a result of the lack of resources. the medical division attempts very arduously to stop the spread of illness. by 1967, 1968, the smallpox epidemic does quell. there is an outbreak of call around, but because cholera came from india than to russia, then europe, then into the caribbean then into new orleans and your new york. the government become efficacious in decent sanitation

measures. as a result, the health conditions improved somewhat profusely. i talk more about the medical division in my book. i'm coming close to the time for questions. i want to wrap this up with a question about public history and how we can think of 1865 today and what it means. as i said with the joseph miller story, when i found it, i found as an affidavit in the national archives, listed in army records in a file named "miscellaneous p ago according to the army's logic, that would make sense because of the bureaucracy. where does this affidavit go? if all is the logic of the archive, but in many ways, it was symbolic about how people thought about health and the experience of free people during the civil war. that is changing. what is really exciting is a number of public history efforts

have been devoted to a technology -- to acknowledging the refugee camps where refugees lived after the civil war. this is just another illustration of the kind of labor that emen did. this is an image of someone with smallpox. i always hesitate to show it only because i think this is a late 19th century image. i'm not sure it is exactly from the civil war. there is also a fascination about seeing how the epidemic, how smallpox arrested from black skin. ethically, i hesitate. doctors wanted to help, but they were also curious. i think this photograph is more about being curious.

here is one example of this commemoration of the public history efforts to acknowledge that freed slaves, when they left slavery, they did not immediately go to the north or to find a job or their families. they were also in these refugee camps. this is fort monroe. this is very exciting. the society of civil war historians met in kentucky a few years ago, and i have a great opportunity to check out cap nelson -- capmp nelson. in order to commemorate all of the women and children, and many of the freed and who died, there is this emblem. it reads, thousands of african-american women and children, most of whom were

families of u.s. colored troops entered cap nelson in 1864-1865 seeking freedom from slavery. this did not exist when i began my research. i think it is absolutely fascinating. when you talk about 1865, there is a change within the public memory about the civil war. 1865 was also a period of a number of challenges for freed slaves. notice the language here. they are not called friedman or former slaves. they are called refugees. what does it mean to us today to say that there are black refugees from the civil war. that is a new way of thinking about this period. this is my toni morrison moment. this is what i consider to be very haunting.

as a way for them to knowledge what you see right here is the commemoration -- the statue, and then just land. what they have done is lefti a small space. he can see this plotted area where the grass growth a little higher and the ground is a little lower. that is to commemorate all of those people who died unmarried. i think, to me, it is a haunting reminder of the civil war and reconstruction. the acknowledgment of death does not always come in a mantelpiece or statue that is erected. it does not come in the bust of the soldier. does not even come in song or in the novel. instead, it comes in the ways that the land just sort of hovers a little bit.

thank you very much. [applause] i will take questions. can you just come to the microphone please. i have been told to say that. >> i have a question about the degree of the medical knowledge or ignorance at the time, specifically with regard to cholera and smallpox. i had thought the colorado in the 1850's in england -- thought that cholera in 1850's in england was through the water supplies spreading. >> that is absolutely true. what we begin to see, just to respond to the cholera park,t,

there was the spread to the water. when cholera breaks out, the federal government is incredibly effective in stopping the further spread, in part because of this knowledge. what happens is when smallpox breaks out, the government always says, we do not have enough resources, we don't know or we can't send doctors there at this time, or we are unsure of how it is spreading. the federal government is limited institution. people in washington d.c. need to send supplies and convey information in louisiana or south carolina -- yes, that will

be a bureaucratic nightmare. when cholera breaks out, although those bureaucratic problems go by the wayside. it is fascinating. all of a sudden, an army general publishes an interesting 450 page encyclopedia -- encyclopedic book that they distribute about what to do when cholera spreads. make sure you're fal following sanitation. in other words, i use cholera to say that the federal government does have the knowledge and manpower, and resources, when they think the epidemic is going to affect all people. with smallpox, when they think it is only affecting black people, they fall back on an

argument that they do not have the materials, or to somehow the slaves' fault. prior to the 18th century, they understood basic concepts of quarantine. i think that is why the images that i was showing you before about the camps are really important. one or two outbreaks of smallpox in the cap -- the best way of solving it, even if you don't have access to vaccinations or knocking nations was to just quarantine the infected person. that is what they do in the union army, and even in the confederate army. in this case, there is no quarantine. that is what causes the explosion. >> was there any attempt to vaccinate? , yes. it depends.

one thing that i discussed much more in my book is that the medical division has 40 hospitals, scattered throughout the south. there are some physicians who will try vaccinations. i remember this case where one doctor said -- now, there is a difference between inoculation and vaccination. inactivation is when you infect someone -- in occunoculation is when you infect someone who is laudable. doing my dissertation defense one of my visors is from public health. she blew up saying, no way, it would not work on 32 people. i get it, but the point is that is where it gets complicated.

even when they were based reaching for vaccinations, we cannot measure how effective it was in those cases. >> good afternoon. keith higgins from canada, studying classics. i am wondering if you can speak to the development of medical technology and more importantly, terminology among rural communities in the south. you mentioned the medical division and that this is prior to the widespread publication at acceptance of the germ theory. i know from my research and from that of my peers, it is alsoa a period of treatments. what was the reaction and development?

>> there are a couple of different answers. first, a technical answer. i can only observe what is happening in certain regions based on the archival trail that i have. if a doctor is in a place like south carolina, in a rural place, and it is a big treatment hospital, then i know. if we go into the interior of louisiana, and you have black communities, which they called the 19th century parlance grannies providing health care. according to the logic of the medical division, if said area was in fact given medical assistance and help from a granny or midwife, they would

just move along. they only went to regions where there weren't. if there was not a communal roural understanding of health, the doctors did not stay there. they were fine. i always think about this when i was teaching. i remember teaching this to my students. it reminded me on how to think about the sources. one of the things to think about is who is your audience. the audience for all of these doctor reports are federal government officials. the doctors do not speak in a lexicon, or jargon, that would be translatable -- they spoke in a language that would be translatable to federal officials, but they are not detailing the medical and scientific knowledge that they might think about on their own. in other lives, very ready to a guy that does not know anything about medicine.

the guy only wants to know -- the federal official only wants to know how many people are sick and how many people can return to work. as a result, the archive has set it up that you really can't get past how the communities are understanding it. other people are. charlotte's work on the antebellum period is brilliant. pete mentioned that i'm going back to school next year. i'm going back to study of apology to answer this question precisely. i think there are ways in which history as a discipline, and me being so wedded to the archive has not allowed me to see it. maybe at the paul logical -- and the biological methods or archaeological methods could yield more results. >> two quick questions. you pointed out the use of refugee, and the shift of language.

how do you feel about the use of contraband, if that is problematic, and maybe terms that we should use. and, the experience of union soldiers -- how did that challenge the experience of black bodies. >> i like the term refugees. contraband is the language that they use in the 19 century. in this case, i think the term refugee is really important for us to knowledge -- i've knowleacknowledge that african-americans were refugees. i think it is a much better term than the term friedman. i think that puts a polish on the experience whereas

"refugees" attends more to the dire predicament. the second point, i think that with the case on black soldiers and bodies, i think it is complex. in many ways, a lot of 19 century white medical doctors definitely prescribed to an early racist logic about medicine and science. there are many white doctors who don't. there are also a few black doctors who work for the hospitals who also don't either. it is hard to generalize. go ahead. >> you seem to be focusing on the professional medical services. a 2013 book looked at this particular situation regarding soldiers and their particular camps and the situation with the environment.

the general statement was that most of the lower level soldiers were in social classes that were entirely distrustful of the fragmented medical system that is out there. they are much more dependent on talking to other persons in similar circumstances to find remedies and approaches for what needed to be done. any evidence of that? >> i just want to give a shout out to my girl. are you saying cap admire -- catherine meyer? >> right. >> that is a brilliant book and a very important book. the sort of response to the previous question. it is about the sources that i have. i have not seen the same sources that she has seen from the perspective of free people. in part, we have to remember,

the documents that she is getting are from archives from soldiers. remember, one of the things to think about -- i set of the context in the very beginning about health being political. free people also don't want to showcase how sick they are during this period either, because they think it will perpetrate a post-slavery logic. i have one source where a family is hiding a member who has small part because they don't want them to go into the hospital. there is a politics around

health of black people that is not the same for soldiers. go ahead. >> my name is dexter. i am an infectious disease specialist. i'm also affiliated with the national civil war museum. i want to thank you for this because one of the things in the museum and i have noticed i deficiency in talking about african-american medicine. one of our volunteers -- he has written a book on african-american surgeons. what he was finding when he would go out and try to talk to him african-american groups, he found, why is the research not being done by an african-american historian? my question is if you have run into any of that. there is also jill. >> i know jill's work very well. of course. the answers are too long to get into right now.

is that it? ok. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much again, jim. we now have about 30 minutes. as you know, the buses are next to the stadium parking lot. enjoy the rest of your afternoon on your chores. we will convene back here this evening for gary's talk. thank you so much.