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U.Porto Memory

Teachers and Students of the Medical-Surgical School of Porto

Aurélia de Moraes Sarmento [Romanoff]

Aurélia de Moraes Sarmento [Romanoff] 1869 - [?] Doctor, the 1st woman with a diploma by Medical-Surgical School of Porto

Aurélia de Moraes Sarmento was the second daughter of Anselmo Evaristo de Moraes Sarmento, a tradesman from Aveiro, and of D. Rita de Cássia Oliveira Moraes, who was born in Porto. The family lived in Rua do Almada in Porto. Aurélia was born in the morning of the 4^th June 1869 in her family home and was baptized by Father Nicolau José Ferreira on the 17^th of the next month in the Parish Church of Nossa Senhora da Vitória. Her godparents by proxy were Doctor António Augusto Soares de Sousa Cirne, a Bachelor of Law, a former judge in Porto Court of Appeal and a former deputy mayor of the city, and D. Guilhermina Carlota d'Almeida Moraes, Aurélia’s paternal grandmother.

Aurélia spent her childhood and youth in Porto. Besides one brother, she had three sisters of about the same age: Laurinda, Guilhermina and Rita, born in 1867, 1870 and 1872, respectively. While her mother was occupied educating their five children, her father worked as a tradesman at the printing company "Imprensa Portuguesa" and as a journalist, editing the periodicals "Gazeta Literária do Porto" and "A Actualidade", and later "A Ideia Nova – diário democrático".

Aurélia’s moral and ethical upbringing was strongly influenced by her father’s open-mindedness, a quality that stemmed from being a descendant of the Moraes de Aveiro, a family persecuted during the absolutist reign of D. Miguel. The family’s influence has also contributed to stress the importance of education as grounds for personal and social promotion.

In addition to the liberal values held by the family, Aurélia was likewise influenced by those who engaged her father for professional reasons or as friends. Among these were such celebrated individuals as Oliveira Martins, Ramalho Ortigão, Camilo Castelo Branco, Antero de Quental and Teófilo Braga. The house of the Moraes Sarmento was a privileged place for the circulation of liberal principles and the ideas of the time, when the establishment of a democratic culture and mentality was a key concern for the country.

Alongside this atmosphere, the fact that the five brothers got their diplomas in higher education is also an important issue. Both Aurélia and her sisters got their diplomas in Porto before the turn of the 19^th century.

When she was 16 years old Aurélia enrolled in Polytechnic Academy of Porto, attending those subjects that were compulsory to get into Medical-Surgical School of Porto. During 1885-1886 she attended and was approved in General Physics, General Inorganic Chemistry and General Organic and Biological Chemistry.

On the 30^th September 1886 she enrolled in Medical-Surgical School of Porto. In June of the following year she took the last preparatory exams in Botany and Zoology in the Polytechnic Academy. Aurélia attended the course at the Medical-Surgical School of Porto with Laurinda, two years her elder: they attended classes together and always took their exams on the same day.

In the year of 1890-1891 both Moraes Sarmento sisters successfully concluded their courses, doing well in the exams for Medical Practice, Surgical Practice, Hygiene and Forensic Medicine and Obstetrics or Parturition. In the latter they were both distinguished as "approved with praise".

In 1891, Aurélia defended the "Ato Grande" in Porto School, granting her the merit of being the first woman to present a dissertation on a clinical subject. Dr. António d'Oliveira Monteiro presided over the defense of the Inaugural Dissertation, entitled Hygiene da Primeira Infancia (Early Childhood Hygiene) which was published by the Portuguese press during 1891. Agostinho António do Souto, Cândido Augusto Correia de Pinho, António Plácido da Costa and Maximiano Lemos were the examiners.

Initially dedicated to her parents, brothers and sisters, the Dissertation is next dedicated to her great-aunt and uncle Venância Rosalina de Moraes Lucena and Jerónimo de Moraes Sarmento, "The last representatives of the old strong breed; heirs to the live democratic and liberal sentiment that forced their brothers and sisters to civic martyrdom in Praça Nova and dragged them through state prisons, through exile and deportation, like any vile capture". Afterwards, it is dedicated to her godfather Dr. António Augusto Soares de Sousa Cirne, to her relatives and friends, to Dr. Teófilo Braga and his wife, D. Maria do Carmo Xavier Braga, and to their deceased children and, finally, to Dr. António Vitorino da Mota, also deceased.

The teaching staff of the Medical-Surgical School of Porto wasn’t forgotten – Doctors João Pereira Dias Lebre, Agostinho António do Souto, Eduardo Pereira Pimenta, A. H. de Almeida Brandão, Ricardo d'Almeida Jorge e Roberto Belarmino do Rosário Frias –, as well as the professors from Polytechnic Academy of Porto - Aarão Ferreira de Lacerda, António Joaquim Ferreira da Silva, Conde de Campo Belo, José Diogo Arroio and Manuel Amândio Gonçalves – and those from Secondary School, among whom were Augusto Manuel Alves da Veiga, Flórido Teles de Menezes Vasconcelos and José Vitorino Ribeiro.

After getting her diploma Aurélia started a private practice with her older sister. Located in n. 579 in Rua do Almada, it specialized in women and children’s illnesses and it held a round-the-clock childbirth service.

In 1894, after Laurinda’s wedding and her two children’s birth, both sisters took a public exam to fill a vacancy for an auxiliary doctor in Santo António General Hospital. Still, the outcome was unfavourable, and they decided to expose and question the choice made by Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto. Their competitor and winner of the contest – Maria Paes Moreira - had been their colleague in Medical-Surgical School of Porto. However, the request to file a legal complaint and the demand to repeat the public examination proved useless.

According to examined sources, Aurélia raised her own family after the death of her father in 1900 and married Júlio Gustavo Romanoff Salvini, a renowned lyrical singer and a music professor established in Porto since mid-nineteenth century and son of the Polish Gustavo Romanoff Salvini, who was related to the Romanov (Russia) imperial family. They had three children: Anselmo, Aurélia and Julieta. The latter married Dr. Manuel Melo de Adrião, known in Aldoar as the "poor people’s doctor".
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2011)