Foundlings, nannies, attending sisters and hospitaller sisters: characters of a major public health problem between vintismo and regeneração (1820-1852)

Abstract

The practice of Pediatric and Child Health Nursing in Portugal is now clearly identified and differentiated. Nevertheless, it had a lengthy evolution in which we point out the existence and the role of nannies, attending sisters and hospitaller sisters in assisting foundlings. Our purpose is to highlight these characters as well as the political and institutional environment in which they lived between Vintismo and Regeneração (1820-1852), According to the historical method, we analyzed both the debates at Cortes Gerais e Extraordinárias (1821-1822) and the legislation produced between 1821 and 1839. We also consulted specific bibliography. We present the result of those debates, the principles stated in the project of the Regulamento da Saúde Pública as far as foundlings are concerned and the laws enacted in that period. A heavy legacy of the Antigo Regime, foundlings were one of the main Public Health problems for which all solving strategies failed. The problem persisted and expanded throughout the 19th century. From that time to modern Nursing, nannies and other “devoted women”, as they attempted to prevent abandoned children from dying, did play a relevant caring and communitarian role in assisting children until the late 19th century.

Keywords

• Historia del siglo XIX
• Historia de la enfermería
• Enfermería en salud pública
• Enfermería pediátrica
• Niño abandonado