Ana Néri

Ana Justina Ferreira Néri (1814 to 1880) was a Brazilian nurse, regarded as the first in her country. She was born in the Bahian village of Cachoeira de Paraguaçu, married a naval commander and was widowed at twenty-nine, raising three sons alone. When Brazil joined the Triple Alliance in the Paraguayan War in 1865 and her sons and brothers were called to service, she wrote to the governor of Bahia offering to care for wounded soldiers. She worked with the army health corps and Vincentian nuns in a hospital at Corrientes that treated more than six thousand soldiers, assisted the wounded at Salto, Humaitá, Curupaiti and Asunción, and founded a nursing house in Asunción with her own money. After the war in 1870 she received honours and a lifelong pension from Emperor Pedro II. The first official Brazilian school of nursing was named after her in 1926.