Today in Technology History
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July 25
Today we discuss the bizarre story of one of the best surgeons in British military history.
James Miranda Stuart Barry was born in about 1795. Around 1809, young Barry entered the medical school at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. No one knows where he went in the years immediately after obtaining his medical degree, but in 1816 he enlisted in the British military.
A long and brilliant career followed. Dr. Barry was posted to South Africa, India and Canada. He became an inspector general in the British army, and also served in the navy, where he helped improve sailors' health. He worked to reform medical care in hospitals, lunatic asylums and leper colonies.
Most notably, while serving in South Africa, he performed the first successful caesarean section in the British empire, with both the mother and child surviving. Before then, C-sections were only done when the mother was dead or dying. Barry became renowned for medical prowess and great surgical skill.
Dr. Barry died on July 25, 1865, roughly 70 years old. However, in preparing his body for burial, it was discovered that Dr. Barry was actually a woman! What's more, an autopsy revealed that she had given birth. For four decades, she had posed as a man in a masculine atmosphere -- once even fighting a duel. Thus, in addition to all her accomplishments as a doctor and surgeon, Barry was the first woman to receive a university medical degree. Her original identity remains a mystery.
Related links:
Click here to read an 1865 newspaper excerpt recounting Barry's story.
You can purchase and download an e-book about Dr. Barry here.
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