public nuisance and it was policed using laws regarding vagrancy or public intoxication, but at the outbreak of the civil war women and prostitution swelled to numbers never seen before, but what happened as a result is venereal disease bake prevalent. two of five men taken to the hospital were sick with venereal diseases and it became a huge problem such that the army acted the first legal framework for prostitution in the u.s., and you ask did it work? well, it required women to register and receive a license to submit to health screenings and even quarantine if they were found to have any diseases, and it was considered a success. it reduced all of those numbers. the numbers of venereal diseases and soldiers didn t have to spend so much time in quarantine