Dr James Barry, the first doctor to perform a successful C section wherein both mother and child survived, was a huge champion of handwashing at a time when most doctors didn’t wash their hands. For this reason, many of the chilldbirths he delivered resulted in healthier babies and mothers. He was also a gay trans man, who specifically wrote that upon his death he wished for his body to be taken in its nightshirt, wrapped in his sheets as a shroud, and placed into the coffin so that nobody would see his body. His wishes were not respected, and as a result he was outed at his death.
i’ve also been informed he had a poodle. He named his poodle Psyche. I’d just like to congratulate him on being an excellent human being, who not only pioneered modern medicine but also had good taste in dogs. that is all.
types of responses to this post
i thought this was fake but it’s not
here’s the sawbones episode about him
cis people
He was also reportedly quite the ladies’ man, and he’d apparently carried a child to term and gave birth.
he’s one of my favorite historical figures and ive read a lot on him including the biography Scanty Particulars by Rachel Holmes. a lot of the details of his life are difficult to figure out, partly cause he was very private and partly cause he had so many rumors surrounding him. here are some of my fave facts about him:
-he was very concerned with protecting poor people, women and people of color, aka all the people most of upper class british society at the time cared the least about. he worked to reform prisons and hospitals in south africa at risk to his own career, and also improved the conditions under which poor enlisted british soldiers and their families lived
-he was kind of a known hothead. he was rumored to have fought at least one duel (probably not true though). florence nightingale hated him even though they had similar ideas about medicine because they had such a clash of personalities in the brief time they worked together
-he was a vegetarian and took a goat with him on sea voyages so he could always have fresh milk
-even though he had an abrasive personality and made a lot of enemies, his patients, especially the women, really loved him because they felt like he knew what he was doing and actually cared about their health
-he died poor because the british army ripped him off >:/
edit i almost forgot the best thing. he didn’t just have one poodle named psyche. he had a bunch. when one died he would get a new poodle and name that one psyche too
“i thought your poodle died?”
“psyche!” [poodle comes trotting in]
this is the best response
Photo of Dr. James Barry in the late 1840s:
You can read more about Dr. Barry here.
MY MAN
Imagine trying to explain this addition to the post to Dr. Barry himself
Oh, I think he’d get it.
Since I keep seeing this post going around, I have a couple additions
His entry into medical school was a plot concocted by his uncle (the artist James Barry) and a number of his progressive friends. It was initially the plan that after Barry finished medical school he would go Venezuela (I think??), where at the time women could practice medicine. This plan fell through, and Barry entered into military service instead (something he once said as a teenager he would have liked to do if he weren’t a girl). It’s worth noting that Barry never did seek to leave the military for Venezuela, indicating some level of comfort/happiness with his male identity, despite the illegality of his ‘posing as a man’ and the repercussions should he have ever be discovered.
Some people think he was gay since his early career in South Africa was marred by a scandal which saw him and the governor of Cape Town being accused of being romantically entangled. The accusation was made anonymously by someone who claimed to have seen them engaged in a sexual relationship. This probably wasn’t true, given that if someone had actually caught them in the act, the takeaway wouldn’t have been that the governor and his personal physician were gay, but rather that Barry wasn’t a cis man.
It was the charwoman who laid out his body who both outed him (she went to the military demanding hush-money and threatening to leak the information to the press if she did not receive it) and discovered that he’d most likely given birth at some point in his life, a conclusion she came to based off the stretch marks on his stomach, which were consistent with those that many people develop while pregnant. Unfortunately, given what we know of Barry’s career and his early life, it’s most likely that the pregnancy was the result of sexual assault when he was a teenager, with the child being passed off as his younger sister rather than his daughter in order to avoid scandal and to spare him the burden of raising a child at such a young age.
On a lighter note,
He was apparently quite the dandy, and dyed his hair bright orange pretty much up until his death. He was also a notorious flirt.
He bought a number of slaves their freedom during his time in South Africa, including an intersex woman who went on to become one of the first trained midwives in Cape Town (her first name was Sanna, though I cant find anything else on her atm).
He once struck a soldier with a riding crop after the man questioned Barry’s masculinity, and was known to challenge anyone who broached the subject of his gender to a duel.
The incident with Florence Nightingale happened when Barry saw her crossing a sunny courtyard on a hot day and yelled at her in front of a bunch of soldiers for not wearing a hat to protect herself from the sun. Shockingly, she did not take kindly to this. So far as I know, this was their only interaction and the two never actually had the chance to speak on a professional basis.
He often incurred his higher-up’s wrath by prioritizing the care of soldiers and their families, indigenous peoples, slaves, prisoners, and lepers.
He was pretty bad at following orders, especially when they got in the way of how he believed he should practice medicine, and was court marshaled at least once.
His ‘unusual’ beliefs including the importance of fresh air and exercise, a balanced diet with fresh fruits and vegetables, the cleaning of hands and surgical tools before procedures, and the discouragement of drinking alcohol. Thanks to this, his wards had the (at the time) highest recovery rates in the british military.
Okay, there’s one thing here that’s being left out (the fact that Dr. Barry rose to the rank of Surgeon General of the Army), and one thing that’s being misattributed.
The Doctor who pioneered hand-washing was Ignaz Semmelweis. And if you ever want to be very angry, read about him.
Also, not to harsh anyone’s squee, but I think Dr. Barry would approve of me adding:
TRANS PEOPLE, THIS IS WHY IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU MAKE A DEATH PLAN THAT INCLUDES POSTMORTEM POWER OF ATTORNEY OR EXECUTOR POWERS GOING TO SOMEONE YOU TRUST.
Dr. Barry’s wishes were not honored because he had no family to do so. He died in a boarding house and a complete stranger attended to him.
Ensure your wishes are honored. Speak with a lawyer or mortician NOW to find out what documents you need to make sure you are buried under your correct name and gender.
Sorry but I’m cracking up at the fact this king saw a woman walking through a garden in the sunlight while surrounded by soldiers and rather than acting like a soldier and catcalling her, he instead yelled at her that she ought to protect herself better from heatstroke.
Some of y'all may not understand, but that is BIG medic energy, I’m not at all surprised this guy got court martialed for telling the navy “fuck you I’m a doctor”
