FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. - From βρέφος "newborn" and τρέφω "I nourish." An institution devoted to the care of illegitimate children who have not been acknowledged, that is, children who are registered with the civil registry office as born of an unknown father and of a mother who does not consent to be named.
Before the establishment of foundling hospitals, such children were all too often abandoned at the doors of churches, in the gardens of convents, in those of hospices, and wherever there was hope that pious people, moved to compassion for the abandoned little creature, would take it into their care.
It was to the credit of the archpriest Dateo, moved by the fate of these children and driven by the spread of these crimes, that in 787 he offered a house of his own in Milan, situated near the church of St. Salvatore, so that it might serve as a refuge for the poor wretches. In the deed of foundation he expresses himself thus: "Volo atque statuo, ut cum tales feminae quae, istigante adversario, ex adultero conceperint et parturierint, si in Ecclesia provenerint, continuo per Praepositum colligantur et collocentur in predicto xenodochio, atque nutrices eis providentur, mercede conductae, quae parvulos lacte nutriant" (L. Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Med. Aevi, III, Milan 1740, col. 588).
A century later in Cremona, in 870, the archpriest Anspetto founded the first asylum "pro infantulis et parvulis peccato natis," where natural and illegitimate children, deprived of their parents' care, found shelter.
These two institutions, the first created in Italy, and by two churchmen, represent the beginning of care for illegitimate children and therefore the beginning of those institutions that were called foundling hospitals and that in time would spread throughout Italy and the world.
Among the oldest foundling hospitals, mention should be made of that of Bergamo, founded in 1100 by the Crociferi fathers; that of Naples, founded around 1300 by a "Congrega" or "Fratria" on the occasion of the discovery of an abandoned infant on the threshold of the church of the Annunziata; and that of Rome, founded in the 13th century by Pope Innocent III; while abroad, among the oldest, mention should be made of the shelters and asylums founded at Montpellier in the 10th century, those of Marseille and of Burgundy, and then in Spain by St. Thomas of Villanova.
An important historical detail is the institution at foundling hospitals of the so-called "wheel," which was first installed in the asylum of Montpellier around 1480 and then, probably immediately afterward, in Rome, at the hospital of St. Spirito, where it is still preserved today as a historical relic.
As is well known, the "wheel" served to allow the child to be received inside the hospice without the mother being able to be identified. The "wheel" can be likened to a cylinder divided in two by a vertical partition that leaves two compartments, one front and one rear, the whole rotating on a pivot, in such a way that the child, deposited from the outside, could be brought to the inside by turning the wheel itself.
At present in Italy almost all provinces have a foundling hospital. By law, illegitimate children are taken in there, and the natural mother is given the option of accompanying the child in order to be able to ensure breastfeeding for it.
Besides illegitimate children born of unknown father and mother, the law establishes that there may also be taken in, by special orders issued by the federations of the Opera Nazionale Maternità ed Infanzia and by appropriate provincial assistance offices, children acknowledged by one of the parents and legitimate children who, owing to special conditions, can no longer be raised in the family environment (poverty of the parents, death of the mother, tuberculosis in the family, etc.).
This expanded function in the type of care has meant that in recent years the most important foundling hospitals, such as those of Rome and Milan, have changed their designation from foundling hospital to "Provincial Institute for Child Welfare."
An entire body of legislation governs the legal and health-related function of these institutes. They must be equipped so as to provide premises for the reception of healthy and syphilitic children, infirmary wards for quarantine and isolation, as well as clinical analysis laboratories specially equipped for the detection of hereditary syphilis.
The law on assistance to the illegitimate child does not wish to lose sight of its moralizing function and provides that the management of the institute (D. L. 8 May 1927, no. 798), when public assistance is requested for an illegitimate child, must carry out, in whatever ways it deems most appropriate, confidential investigations to ascertain the mother, for the purpose of establishing, where possible, the latter's health conditions, of procuring breastfeeding for the infant, and of inducing the mother herself to acknowledge the child. The midwife and the physician who assisted the mother of the infant during childbirth are required to answer the questions of the persons entrusted with the investigations. In case of refusal, art. 366 of the Penal Code applies. It is strictly forbidden to reveal the outcome of the investigations carried out to ascertain the maternity of illegitimate children, and, where the requisite conditions exist, articles 622 and 326 of the Penal Code are applied.
The law further establishes that the mother or the father may acknowledge the child at any age, while it gives the management of the institute the possibility, when on the basis of information received or of time elapsed it has sufficient elements to conclude that the abandonment has been definitive, of entrusting the child to spouses who, furnished with the necessary documents, request a child in custody.
The entrustment may be made either for paid custody, that is, by means of a monthly contribution that the management gives to the custodian, whether a private individual or a collegial institution, or for affective purposes, when the requesting spouses, without children of their own, wish to have a child in order to adopt it.
Bibliography2 works
Giuseppe Vitetti