Doctor James Barry (1795-1865), Hospitals General Inspector for his British Majesty

Abstract

On 25 July 1865 Dr. James Barry, Hospitals General Inspector for his British Majesty, died in London. The assistant who prepared the corpse reported that it was, undoubtedly, a woman's corpse. This statement provoked public commotion and even today, 150 years after, it continues to arise controversies and questions.
James Barry had probably been born in Ireland between 1789 and 1795 as Margaret Ann Bulkley. A terrible economic crisis in her family resulted in her being placed under the guardianship of her uncle, painter James Barry´s and various pro-feminist liberals in the early 19th Century Great Britain. In 1809, dressed as a man, she entered the School of Medicine of Edinburgh, where she graduated three years after. Later she studied at the Guy and St. Thomas Hospitals; she passed the Royal College of Surgeons exam and entered the Armed Force in 1813. There she practiced as assistant medical doctor, assistant surgeon, head of surgeons, General Staff Doctor, Assistant Hospitals General Inspector, and last, Hospitals General Inspector, the highest position someone without military training could aspire for in the United Kingdom. Dr. Barry was sent to Capetown, South Africa, Mauritius, Jamaica, Saint Helena, Antigua, Trinidad, Malta, Corfu and Canada. His strange appearance and aggressive behavior resulted in his having problems in all of these destinations, he participated in a duel and was involved in several other duels. He was repeatedly subject to administrative investigations and faced at least one martial Court, as a result of which he was downgraded. As a doctor, he was outstanding. As a surgeon, he was skillful, quick and precise, and he practiced the first C-section in Africa, where both the mother and the child survived. He fought for the weak, the mentally sick, the slaves, the prisoners and the hopeless soldiers wherever he went.
We ignore his gender, he might have suffered from the very unusual genetic disorder called complete androgenic insensitivity syndrome, or he might have simply been a woman who overcame the strict conventions of her time with her male disguise, and managed to graduate 40 years before Elizabeth Garret did, who was the first British doctor in Edinburgh.