Cecilia Grierson: Argentina’S First Female Doctor
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Irish Migration Studies in Latin America Cecilia Grierson: Argentina’s First Female Doctor By Carolina Barry (1) Translated by David Barnwell The name of the first female doctor in pharmacy, becoming the first woman to Argentina is associated with the pioneering graduate in that field in 1885. Unfortunately she period when a group of women in Latin became seriously ill while in the fifth year of America and the Caribbean challenged barriers medical school and died in 1893, without being of indifference and rejection. These were the awarded a degree. first women to join the professions. The path that led Cecilia Grierson to study Cecilia Grierson was born in Buenos Aires on medicine, with all the difficulties she had to 22 November 1859. Her appearance - round confront, must be seen in terms of the slow but face, lively blue eyes and bright brown hair, important reforms and changes in the law that betrayed her family origin. Her mother, Jane gave women greater access to education in Duffy (1832-1887) was Irish. (2) Her father, Argentina, indeed throughout the Latin John Parish Robertson Grierson (1828-1872) America of the 1870s and 1880s. This was the was the eighth child of William Grierson, one period of the creation of schools and colleges of the Scottish colonists who had arrived in for young ladies, with the goal of forming good Buenos Aires in 1825 to settle the Scottish and suitable wives and mothers. The colony of Santa Catalina-Monte Grande. curriculum was elementary, being restricted to reading and writing as well as some basic Cecilia Grierson spent her early childhood on arithmetic and language. It should be her family’s estancia in the province of Entre remembered that secondary education for girls Ríos, where her family were prosperous did not exist until the early years of the farmers. At the age of six she was sent to attend twentieth century. Such was the climate in English and French schools in Buenos Aires, which Cecilia Grierson and her contemporaries but had to return home upon the early death of had to move. There is no doubt that for a her father. Despite her youth, she helped her woman to decide to study medicine in 1882 was mother run a country school, at which the totally novel, ground-breaking and, it might be young Cecilia worked as teacher. As she was added, illegal. It was considered inappropriate still a minor, Cecilia’s teaching salary was paid for a female to be in contact with human to her mother. With time the family overcame bodies, even if it were with the noble goal of its tragedy, and Cecilia returned to Buenos curing them. Grierson began her studies in a Aires to enter the Nº 1 Girls Normal School. difficult environment, full of prejudices and She graduated as teacher in 1878. She taught even animosity. Women were until then barred for some years at a boys’ school but then from the School of Medicine; as we have seen, decided to undertake the study of medicine, a they scarcely yet participated in formal rare choice for a young woman at that time. secondary education. Nevertheless, Grierson was an exceptional student and managed to get Medical Career involved in an impressive range of activities Her path was difficult and in the beginning, while still a student. Among the most strewn with obstacles. At the age of twenty- important were: her unpaid service as assistant three, Grierson had to provide written of the university laboratory: and, in 1885, her justification for her wish to become a doctor. practicum in Public Health in several hospitals. In the interests of truth it should be recorded Here she organised an ambulance service, that earlier another woman, Elida Passo, had introducing the use of alarm bells (equivalent to entered the School of Medicine to study today’s sirens), an innovation in a system that Barry, Carolina. ‘Cecilia Grierson: Argentina’s First Female Doctor’ 213 Vol. 6, n°3 (November 2008) till then had been exclusive to the fire brigade. point of discovering that she was unable to In 1886, during a cholera epidemic, she practice legally. Yet, undeterred, she continued received widespread acknowledgment for her her many activities, especially that of teaching. efficient work in caring for patients in the Upon her graduation she joined the Hospital Isolation Unit (present-day Hospital Muñiz). San Roque, today Hospital Ramos Mejía. In It was there that she began to see the need for 1892, not three years after her graduation, she professionalising auxiliary medical staff. This created the Argentine First Aid Society and was a new measure in the Argentina of the published a book on the care of accident time. She introduced the teaching of nursing victims. At the same time she was offering and incorporated the latest European - classes in anatomy at the Academia de Bellas especially British - practices. She founded the Artes, as well as providing free psychological first Nurses’ School in the country, inspired by and learning consultations for children with the reports of the Third International special needs. She promoted the teaching of Conference of the Red Cross on first aid childcare and was a pioneer in the education of training. Student nurses attended classes on blind and deaf mute children. Around this time childcare, first aid and treatment of patients. she also finished her books: La educación del ciego This initiative led in 1891 to the creation and (The Education of the Blind), Cuidado del enfermo official recognition of the Nurses’ School of the (Patient Care - a book of more than 800 pages) Argentine Medical Circle. This later became the and Primer Tratado Nacional de Enfermería (First Municipal Nursing School ‘Dr Cecilia National Nursing Textbook). Grierson’, which still today bears her name. She In 1901 she founded the National Obstetrics continued as Director until 1913. In 1890 Dr Association, where she adopted the best Grierson also founded the Nursing School of practice from the obstetric and gynaecological the British Hospital. Grierson was a pioneer in clinics of Paris. Typically, she accompanied this what today is known as kinesiology. She put with the creation of the Revista Obstétrica, a this into practice in a course in massage which journal that set out to offer midwives in she taught at the School of Medicine, and she Argentina a scientific and medical approach in a later developed her ideas in her book Practical field that had traditionally been run by Massage. The book was widely read and played a untrained women. In 1902 she founded the key role in the development of modern Society for Domestic Economy, later to kinesiology in Argentina. Nowadays two of the become the Technical School for Home fundamental pillars in nursing education in Management, the first of its kind in the Argentina are the Nurses’ School founded by country. In 1907 she began teaching Domestic Cecilia Grierson and the School founded by the Science at the Liceo de Señoritas de la Capital Ministry of Public Health under the direction (Buenos Aires Girls’ Secondary School), the of Ramón Carrillo. first such course in Argentina. Two years later Grierson was a practical person. What she she travelled to Europe in order to study issues learned, she taught, wrote about and then put of concern to women: education, domestic into practice. In 1888 she was practising at the economy, industrial schools. As a result of what Rivadavia Hospital, a fact even more she observed, the Consejo Nacional de Educación revolutionary than her becoming a doctor in (National Education Council) put together a the first place. A year later she successfully curriculum for professional schools. Grierson defended her thesis on gynaecology, the fruit of published Educación técnica de la mujer (Women’s her work in that area: Histero-ovariotomías Technical Education), introducing the study of efectuadas en el Hospital de Mujeres desde 1883 a childcare into these schools. She held teaching 1889 (Ovary Extractions at the Women’s positions in the Escuela de Bellas Artes (School Hospital 1883-1889). She became the first of Fine Arts) and Liceo Nacional de Señoritas woman in Argentina to receive a degree in (National Secondary School for Girls) where medicine. (3) But Dr Grierson continued to she taught from its inception in 1907. She was a face difficulties even after graduating, to the tireless worker throughout, even giving 214 Barry, Carolina. ‘Cecilia Grierson: Argentina’s First Female Doctor’ Irish Migration Studies in Latin America gymnastics lessons at the School of Medicine. between women of the elite upper classes who In 1912 the Argentine government sent her to were involved in charitable work, on the one return to Europe to study curricula and hand, and female university graduates and participate in the First International Eugenics professionals who felt deprived of power and Conference, held in London (Kohn Loncarica influence and held different perspectives on 1976: 79). women’s problems. At the beginning the CNM acted as coordinator for the diverse groups and Feminist Activity philanthropic associations of women in The lack of acceptance which Cecilia Grierson Argentina, as well as a link with similar bodies faced led her to adopt a militant posture and in other countries. agitate to change the real living conditions of CNM members operated according to the her sex. This task came in addition to her principle that home and family were prolific academic activity. Soon she held an fundamental interests for women. It was agreed important role in the recently founded that their principal goal would be women’s Argentine Socialist Party, and was taking part in equality, both as a means of gaining a respected the first feminist groups which arose out of the place within society as well as helping women international women’s emancipation movement attain their goals in life as mothers and wives.