Anastasia Golovina MD

First Bulgarian female physician and psychiatrist Anastasia Golovina (1850–1933)

October 17, 1850 saw her birth in Chișinău, today part of the Republic of Moldova. Her parents were immigrants from Kalofer, Bulgaria; she was the sixteenth child in her family. Early in the 1800s, her grandpa Kalcho Minkov had migrated from Kalofer to Bessarabia. He was nine-year mayor of Chișinău and volunteered during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829.

Early death of her father and the social limitations of the time that restricted women’s access to higher education presented major difficulties for Anastasia. Still, she passed the tests to work as a private instructor, graduated from a French college in Chișinău, and started working as a stenographer at the local administrative body, Zemstvo of Chișinău. She kept aiming for the chance to pursue more study even with these successes.

Anastasia Golovina decided in 1871 to study medicine in Zurich, Switzerland. Given the very small number of women studying medicine in Europe at the time, this decision was extraordinary. Later on, the Swiss government sent her and other students to Russia after her progressive opinions caused conflict. Still, her commitment to medicine drove her to the Sorbonne in Paris, where she kept on her studies and graduated in 1876. Later she trained at the Pitié hospital in 1878 and the Cotten hospital in 1877. Highly appreciated by the committee, chaired by Professor Vulpian, her PhD thesis Histological Study of the Structure of Arterial Walls inspired the respect of scientist Jean Charcot. Still a valuable source, this thesis is presently kept in the Sorbonne in Paris archives.

Just five women have graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris with medical degrees before her. Anastasia Golovina became the first female doctor in Bulgaria and the first Bulgarian woman with a university degree.
Bulgarian officials visited several nations to spread awareness of the crimes carried out by the Ottoman rulers in Bulgaria following the merciless quell of the April 1876 revolt. Deeply moved by the suffering of the Bulgarian people in Paris, Anastasia developed great compassion for their cause and made the decision to commit her knowledge and efforts to assist the Bulgarian people.
She went back to Chișinău in 1878 and then traveled to Bulgaria in 1879, working as a municipal doctor in Veliko Tarnovo. Freed from Ottoman domination, the newly liberated nation was sorely lacking educated people.

Among the medical advancements she brought about were autopsy to ascertain causes of death. She also wrote many of popular and scientific medical pieces for Bulgarian and foreign publications. The first medical association in Bulgaria, the Physico-Medical Society welcomed her as a founding member.

She met Alexandre Golovine, a Russian officer and volunteer during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, while in Veliko Tarnovo; he subsequently joined the newly founded Bulgarian government. Not too long afterward, they were married Anastasia Golovina also actively participated as her husband directed the correspondence office in Prince Battenberg’s political cabinet following Bulgaria’s freedom.
She then worked as a doctor in Sofia, where she was resident at Alexandrovsky Hospital and also employed at the first capital girls’ high school. The couple departed Bulgaria following Prince Alexander Battenberg’s overthrow. Dr. Golovina worked two years in the Zurich Faculty of Medicine.

The family returned to Bulgaria in 1887 and settled in Varna, where Anastasia became the first female physician working for a public hospital. Her knowledge allowed her to oversee the State Hospital’s internal department, therefore facilitating the assessment of improvements in health and hygiene since the nation’s freedom from Ottoman control. She also took part in the first scientific projects in Varna and was instrumental in founding the Medical Society, which sought to raise sanitary control and professional standards of medical teams. She was appointed chief municipal doctor in 1889, mostly in charge of keeping public areas, streets, and courtyards clean, thereby guaranteeing hygiene in fish markets and slaughterhouses, and stopping the epidemic spread.

She later took leadership of the recently founded State Hospital’s psychiatric division. She brought contemporary methods of treating mental health disorders, stressing mainly the therapeutic advantages of the natural surroundings, particularly the sea. She became the first Bulgarian psychiatrist in this capacity and among the forerunners of physiotherapy and balneotherapy in Bulgaria.

Before returning to Varna, Dr. Golovina also served for a year in Plovdiv as the head of the first-class hospital. She belonged also to the Society for the Protection of Children and the Bulgarian Red Cross.

She gave the Union for the Protection of Children in Bulgaria her residence at 14 Gurgulyat Street (now Tsar Simeon the First) in 1927. She also carried out intensive promotion for hardening children using water and sun treatments in addition to anthropometric measures and health advise.

Apart from her medical activities, Anastasia Golovina served as a doctor in Varna during the Balkan Wars and World War I.At 82 years old, she passed away in Varna, Bulgaria on March 5, 1933.

• https://www.mu-varna.bg/BG/Pages/Anastasia-Golovina.aspx

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