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1877
The first State Board of HealthThe State Board of Health is organized and for the first time public health work is assigned as a permanent function of state government. The board is given responsibility for regulating the practice of medicine and promoting sanitary and hygienic activities to control and prevent disease. Dr. John H. Rauch of Chicago, the highest ranking medical director on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's staff in the Army of Tennessee and sanitary superintendent for the Chicago Board of Health, is elected the first board president. For its first two years of operation, the board receives an appropriation of $5,000.

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