Cholera and smallpox outbreaks were reaching epidemic proportions, and something had to be done.
Recognizing the need for some official action to comb the infectious diseases ravaging the city, Wheeling City Council on Oct. 19, 1832, appointed 13 men to serve as the Board of Health. By September 1925 Ohio County commissioners contracted with Wheeling City Council to form a combined city-county health board.
Such was the origin of public health nursing in the Ohio Valley. more...