This article analyzes the organization of nursing in the city of Belo Horizonte between 1897 and 1933 - before the institutionalization of this knowledge field through the creation of the Carlos Chagas Nursing School. At this time, public health actions were mainly geared towards combating and controlling epidemic and endemic diseases and for hygiene and health education of the population. Between the late nineteenth century until the 1910s, health actions had diseases as their axis, and the nurses carried out the activities in isolation hospitals, leper hospitals, hostels and homes under the guidance and monitoring of doctors, or informally and unsupervised as a way of helping others. The 1920s and 1930s marked a period of transformation in public health, with emphasis on prevention and sanitary education. Since then the organization of two fronts of nurses in prevention and health promotion has been observed: the "visiting nurses" and the "school nurses", whose work was based on guidelines and practices advocated by contemporary health education. The present study reveals a universe around the nurses which was almost not explored in the context of the history of nursing, especially with regard to this history in Minas Gerais, particularly the capital city Belo Horizonte.
nursing; history of nursing; public health; Belo Horizonte