April 2002, Vol 92, No. 4 | American Journal of Public Health 565
© 2002 American Public Health Association
A Dedicated Public Health Nurse
Elizabeth Fee,
Theodore M. Brown,
Jan Lazarus and
Paul Theerman
Elizabeth Fee, Jan Lazarus, and Paul Theerman are with the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Elizabeth Fee, PhD, Building 38, Room 1E21, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 (e-mail: elizabeth_fee{at}nlm.nih.gov).
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INTRODUCTION
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 TOP
 INTRODUCTION
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MISS EUGENIA BROUGHTON, a public health nurse with the Berkeley County Health Department of South Carolina, is shown here teaching newborn baby care to a class of pregnant women. Born in 1914, "Miss Genie" never married but devoted herself to the health care and education of people in the sparsely populated rural area around Charleston.
Nurse Broughton received her nursing training and diploma at the Charity Hospital of Savannah, Ga, in 1937. In Summerville, SC, she worked under the auspices of the Reformed Episcopal Church as a "special community nurse." Nurse Broughton walked the dusty roads daily to visit her patients until one of the church members gave her a used Buick. As one of her contemporaries noted, Miss Genie nursed the people, sang with them, drove them to the local clinic, and sometimes preached to them.
Miss Genie completed postgraduate public health nurse training at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in 1948. When she returned again to Berkeley County, local church members donated the money to buy her a traveling clinic—a trailer equipped as a clinic—so that she could bring clinical services to her patients throughout the county.
In 1969, the South Carolina State Board of Public Health constructed a new building, consisting of 2 examining rooms, a waiting room, and office space, to replace the aging Mobile Trailer Clinic. The Berkeley County Health Department dedicated the building to Nurse Broughton in honor of her long service and devotion to better health in Berkeley County.
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Source. Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine.
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Footnotes
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Note. Most of the Prints and Photographs Collection of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine may be viewed through the online database "Images From the History of Medicine" at http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/. The Web site also provides information on ordering reproductions of images. If you have a print, photograph, or other visual item that might be appropriate for this collection, please contact the History of Medicine Division.
Copyright © 2002 by the American Public Health Association
