Carolina Beatriz Ângelo’s surgery (Rua Nova do Almada, 84)

Carolina Beatriz Ângelo came from Guarda to Lisbon to study: at the Polytechnic School from 1895, then at the Medical-Surgical School, where she graduated in 1902.⁴ She was the first Portuguese woman doctor to operate at São José Hospital, worked at Rilhafoles with Miguel Bombarda and devoted herself to gynaecology. An advertisement from 1909 places her surgery here, at no. 84 Rua Nova do Almada; she was then living at no. 181 Rua do Sol ao Rato.¹

The Baixa was also the territory of another feminist doctor. Adelaide Cabete, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, opened a surgery in 1907 at no. 153 Rua da Prata, moved it in 1908 to no. 267 Rua Áurea and, from 1910, to no. 13 Praça dos Restauradores, where she gave free consultations to women on low incomes and where she set up the headquarters of the National Council of Portuguese Women.²

Two years after the advertisement, Carolina, a widow and head of family, applied to be registered as a voter. Refused, she went to court, and Judge João Baptista de Castro ruled in her favour: on 28 May 1911 she was the first woman to vote in Portugal, at the Clube Estefânia.⁵