Saturnina Hidalgo

Because of her brother José's early interest in obstetrics, Saturnina – along with her mother and eight sisters – shared health concerns and sought medical advice from him.In one letter, Hidalgo wrote: I am sending you news that I now have two children, the eldest is Alfredo, next is Adela, and now I am eight months pregnant.[1]An article documenting the emergence of Western medicine in the Philippines and healthcare consumption among wealthy Filipinas around the turn of the 20th century discussed gynecologist Felipe Zamora's diagnosis that Hidalgo possessed a "swollen, out of place, and dirty" uterus.[2] In 1890, she initially begged her brother, José, to remedy the political situation in which her husband, whom she called Maneng, became deported to Bohol for his alliance with Rizal, a letter from later that year revealed her change of heart."[3] In 1909, Hidalgo published the first Tagalog/Filipino translation (by Pascual H. Poblete) of her brother's revolutionary novel Noli Me Tángere, thus ensuring Rizal's words became accessible, beyond elite Spanish-speaking circles, to the common Filipino.