Cecilia Grierson
| Cecilia Grierson | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 22 November 1859 Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Died | 10 April 1934 (aged 74) Buenos Aires |
| Alma mater | University of Buenos Aires |
Cecilia Grierson (22 November 1859 – 10 April 1934) was an Argentine physician, reformer, and prominent Freethinker. She had the added distinction of being the first woman to receive a Medical Degree in Argentina.
Cecilia Grierson was born in Buenos Aires in 1859 to Jane Duffy, an Irish Argentine woman, and John Parish Robertson Grierson. Her paternal grandfather, William Grierson, was among the Scottish colonists who had arrived in Buenos Aires in 1825 to settle Santa Catalina-Monte Grande.
Grierson spent her early childhood on her family’s estancia in Entre Ríos Province, where her family were prosperous farmers. At the age of six she was sent to attend English and French schools in Buenos Aires, but had to return home on the early death of her father. She assisted her mother in managing a country school, and eventually taught there. Grierson returned to Buenos Aires to enroll at the Nº 1 Girls Normal School, where she graduated as a teacher in 1878. She taught for a number of years at a nearby boys’ school, and decided to study medicine.
Grierson faced entrenched opposition to her enrollment in medical school in 1883, and was asked to provide written justification for her wish to become a doctor. Another woman, Elida Passo, had entered the School of Medicine to pursue a degree of Doctor of Pharmacy, becoming in 1885 the first Argentine woman to earn a university diploma in Argentina. Passo overcame numerous rejected applications and returned to earn a Medical Degree. She became seriously ill while in the fifth year of medical school, however, and died in 1893 without a diploma.
Women were barred from the School of Medicine at the nation's four universities in operation at the time; indeed, few women in 19th century Argentina enrolled in formal secondary education. Grierson, however, was an exceptional student, volunteering as an unpaid assistant at the university laboratory, and in 1885, beginning her internship under the auspices of the Public Health Department. She organized an ambulance service while with the department, introducing the use of alarm bells (equivalent to today’s sirens), an innovation that until then had been exclusive to the fire brigade. Her work during an 1886 cholera epidemic garnered her widespread acknowledgment for her efficient work in caring for patients in the Isolation Unit (in present-day Hospital Muñiz).
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