Her paternal grandfather William Grierson, a native of Mouswald in Dumfriesshire, was among the 220 Scottish colonists who arrived in Buenos Aires in August 1825 from Leith to settle Monte Grande.

She was appointed by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as a teacher at a nearby boys’ school, and after a bereavement of a dear friend, Grierson decided to study medicine.

Grierson, however, was an exceptional student, volunteering as an unpaid assistant at the university laboratory, and in 1885, beginning her internship under the auspices of the Public Health Department.

She organized an ambulance service while with the department, introducing the use of alarm bells (equivalent to today’s sirens), an innovation that until then had been exclusive to the fire brigade.

[4] Taking part in 1892 in the first cesarean section performed in Argentina, she founded the National Obstetrics Association in 1901, and its journal, Revista Obstétrica.

She also gave gymnastics lessons at the Faculty of Medicine and mentored the few other female students that had enrolled; one of these, Armandina Poggetti, in 1902 became the first woman in Argentina to earn a degree in Pharmacology.

Grierson published Educación técnica de la mujer (Women’s Technical Education), introducing the study of day care in these schools.

The CNM, in the person of Grierson and Elvira Rawson de Dellepiane, presented a draft bill in 1906 to the National Congress providing for the creation of funds for social welfare benefits and maternity leave for working-class women.

Alvina Van Praet de Sala, the president, arranged for a priest to attend all their meetings, a decision which was opposed by Grierson and her allies.

[1] Grierson was an active supporter of the Argentine Freethinkers Association (AALP), which advocated rationalism, anticlericalism, a scientific approach to life, and full equality for women.

She lived in scenic Los Cocos, Córdoba Province, during her retirement, practicing family medicine on a largely pro bono basis and teaching.

She was allowed credit for only a few years' service upon her retirement and received but a modest pension; she lamented most, however, that she was never offered the position of Chair of her alma mater's Faculty of Medicine, which she attributed to misogyny,[1] as a single woman.

[6] A noted academic and activist throughout her life, Grierson died in Buenos Aires in 1934, at age 74, and was buried in the city's British Cemetery,[4] (See also the English page of: Cementerio Británico).