Health care workers are always on the front lines, often in life-or-death situations, but it’s in times like these when we realize just how much they sacrifice.

Doctors, nurses, technicians and hospital staffers are the heroes of our fight against the spread of COVID-19 so we’re saluting modern-day workers with a look at photos covering 100 years of health care in Alabama.

Thanks to all of you, then and now, for taking care of us.

Don't Edit

Auburn University Libraries

Dr. Cecil S. Yarbrough at a clinic in 1938.

Don't Edit

Auburn University Libraries

The Auburn University football team doctor with a player in the 1950s.

Don't Edit

Huntsville-Madison County Public Library

Dr. Burgess E. Scruggs in 1904.

Don't Edit

Jacksonville State University Archives

Nursing student Brenda Shepherd at Jacksonville State University in the 1960s.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

A child receives a polio immunization shot at a clinic at Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery in 1959.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Class of nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Birmingham in 1912.

Don't Edit

AL.com File Photo | Birmingham News

Nurses at a health fair in an unknown location in Alabama.

Don't Edit

Jacksonville State University Archives

A doctor identified as Dr. Folo and Nurse Phyliss Helms in 1967 at Jacksonville State University.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Doctor positioning a patient for a chest X-ray at a medical office in Montgomery in 1953.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

AL.com File Photo | Birmingham News

Mobile native Dr. Regina M. Benjamin practicing medicine in Bayou La Batre in 2001. She served as the 18th Surgeon General of the U.S.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nursing students at Samford University.

Don't Edit

Historic Mobile Preservation Society

A Mobile doctor’s office, c.-1900.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nurses with a defibrillator at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery in 1977.

Don't Edit

UAB Libraries

Dr. Joseph G. Moore and a group of nurses at Hillman Hospital in Birmingham, 1911.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Library of Congress

A woman identified as Nurse Shamburg weighs baby in a clinic in Gee’s Bend in the 1930s.

Don't Edit

Historic Mobile Preservation Society

Doctors Howard, Frazer and Jackson demonstrate surgery.at City Hospital in Mobile in 1902.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Evie Mohr , a supervisor at the Downtown Nursing Home in Montgomery in 1968.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Gail Estes, a ventilation therapist, explains equipment to a patient at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery in 1971.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Huldah Goode, an Alabama woman of Cherokee descent, served as a doctor using native herbs and was known for never turning anyone away.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Birmingham Public Library

Industrial High School's nursing room is shown in the 1920s in a photo by the Birmingham View Company.

Don't Edit

AL.com File Photo | Birmingham News

Doctors and a nurse at Villa Mercy Nursing Home in 1985.

Don't Edit

University of South Alabama | McCall Library

Inside the operating room of the old City Hospital in Mobile in 1915.

Don't Edit

AL.com File Photo | Birmingham News

Nurses at Birmingham’s Carraway Hospital with a whirlpool tank used for water therapy in 1974.

Don't Edit

Tuskegee University Archives

John Watson Chenault, a physician with John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Jacksonville State University

Nurse with a student at Jacksonville State University in 1969.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

L.R. Jordan presenting flowers to the Jefferson County Nurse of the Year, Ida Moffett, at Birmingham Baptist Hospital in 1966.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Maxwell Field nurses – 2nd Lt. Margaret Clauss and 2nd Lt. Dorothy Meeker – in 1943.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

A nurse makes a bed at Good Samaritan Hospital Nursing Home, possibly taken in Selma in 1957.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

A nurse operating a sterilizing unit at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery in 1956.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nurses’ dormitory in 1916 at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, then known as the Alabama Insane Hospital.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nurses are shown in the 1910s at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, then known as the Alabama Insane Hospital.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nurses display an American flag at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham in the 1910s. Sister Chrysostom Moynahan is shown in the center.

Don't Edit

Historic Mobile Preservation Society

Nurses at Providence Infirmary in Mobile in 1905.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nurses prepare food at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, ca. 1918.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

A nurses’ station at Camp Rotary in Elmore County in 1953.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

A nurses' station at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery in 1977.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Nursing class at Norwood Hospital in Birmingham in 1921.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Participants in a first aid class in the town of Evergreen in 1934.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Southern Infirmary in Mobile, ca. 1900.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Supervisors and nurses at Bryce Hospital in 1916.

Don't Edit

Fairhope Public Library

Nurses at Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education in Fairhope.

Don't Edit

Alabama Department of Archives and History

Training class for nurses at the Drummond Fraser Hospital at Avondale Mills in Sylacauga in 1943.

Don't Edit

Birmingham Pubic Library

Nurses at Carraway Hospital get a drink from a vending machine.

Don't Edit

Jacksonville State University Archives

Jacksonville State University football coach Charley Pell with a doctor in 1969.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

AL.com File Photo | Birmingham News

St. Vincent Hospital student nurse Charlene Rawleigh and Dr. Clay Sheffield with dolls dressed as health workers in 1967.

Don't Edit

AL.com File Photo | Birmingham News

Dr. Tocsel Jolicoeur confers with doctors Thomas Reed, Martin Jeffries and C. B. Jolicoeur in Brownville.