James Barry (surgeon)

James Barry (surgeon)

James Miranda Stuart Barry (c. 1789-1799 – 25 July 1865), was a military surgeon in the British Army. After graduation from the University of Edinburgh, Barry served in India and Cape Town, South Africa. By the end of his career, he had risen to the rank of Inspector General in charge of military hospitals. In his travels he not only improved conditions for wounded soldiers, but also the conditions of the native inhabitants. Among his accomplishments was the first caesarean section in Africa by a British surgeon in which both the mother and child survived the operation.

Although Barry lived his adult life as a man, it is widely believed that he was female assigned at birth and named Margaret Ann Bulkley and that he chose to live as a man so that he might be accepted as a university student and be able to pursue his chosen career as a surgeon. Thus Barry would be the first female assigned at birth to become a qualified medical doctor. It has also been theorized that Barry was intersex.