Virginia Angiola Borrino (28 March 1880 – 14 January 1965) was an Italian physician and paediatrician in addition to being a university professor. Borrino was the first woman to serve as head of a university pediatric ward in Italy. She was one of the founding members of the Italian Association of Medical Women (Associazione Italiana Donne Medico).
Early life and education
Virginia Angiola Borrino was born in a small hamlet called Mortigliengo in the county of Biella. The last of four children, she lost her father at the age of eight and ended up being raised by her mother and her father's brother (Quinto Borrino). Her vocation for medicine dates back to her childhood conversations with a doctor, one of her uncle's friends. She graduated in medicine and surgery in 1905 in Turin. She then spent a year in Florence, where she worked with Giuseppe Maya, who led her to move to Breslavia. During her degree, she also developed a particular interest in infant physiology, thanks to the influence of Doctor Angelo Mosso (and in particular his works Fatica and Paura) and Amedeo Herlitzka. Her interest in children's health was also sparked by her gynaecology internship, where she would take care of children that had been abandoned. There were very few women at this time in the medical field. She tended to talk very little while carefully listening to her male colleagues. This led them to call her "crystal-lined" ( in Italian), as she was often on the sides of the conversations, but still very attentive.
First job experiences
Her first job experience took place in Wrocław, but she soon moved to Charlottenburg, Berlin, where she worked in the Charité pediatric clinic while she was studying with Professor Finkelstein in the nursery where she treated many infants from all origins, both sick and healthy, which had been separated from their mothers.
She spent two months in Paris at the clinic run by Professor Marfan, who thoroughly studied newborns breastfeeding, and then she was offered a position at the private hospital Regina Margherita (in Turin) as an assistant. Here accidents were quite common. This led her to pay more attention to how poor surveillance of children could cause infant deaths that could be avoided. Turin is also where she gave her first lectures, which were about the newly born Montessori method and other educational issues. Her professorship in paediatrics, therefore, began in 1913.
In Magna Sila (1912–1918) she was offered a job by Professor Gosio (a bacteriologist). She would run an anti-malaria sanatorium for children. She also ended up taking care of any type of disease and patient, as well as several wounded soldiers due to war. There was also an outbreak of the Spanish flu, which devastated Europe and killed more than 20 million people. She had a great urge to go back to her family in Turin, but had to limit herself to sending just a few letters with general medical advice and a few comforting words. Together with Ester Penati, her dearest friend, Borrino founded a maternal nursery in Turin that would become a model all over Italy for sheltering both mothers and children without a family. It was the first institution in Italian legislation with the aim of protecting rights in early childhood which were missed in the Italian health organization, dating back to 1885 whose laws protected the rights of only women and children. During WWI, Virginia offered her abilities in battlefield hospitals, but since her knowledge as a paediatrician was strongly needed for civilians, she continued taking care of women and children.
At the end of the war, she finally received her first chair for paediatrics at the University of Siena from Prof. Ferdinando Micheli, a famous medical pathologist.