Medicine: Dr. James Barry

Had to write a paper for my medical history class; this is the result. Interesting to speculate about, to say the least:

The Curious Story of Dr. James Barry
(Who May or May Not Have Been England’s First Female Physician)

In 1809, a young man named James Barry enrolled at the University of Edinburgh as a medical student. He graduated in 1812 and went on to a distinguished yet controversial career as a military surgeon and Inspector-General of Hospitals in the British army. On July 25, 1865, the lifelong bachelor Dr. Barry died, alone and penniless, of dysentery in a rented room. In August, 1865, the servant who had dressed his corpse for burial reported to Army agents and to Barry’s physician, Dr. William McKinnon, that the body she had dressed was a “perfect female.” And thereby hangs a tale.


As far as can be determined, James Barry did not officially exist prior to signing the register at Edinburgh. No prior records have even been found, although many have searched for them. He is known to have arrived in Edinburgh in the company of a Mrs. Mary Ann Bulkley, whom he described in one of his few surviving personal letters as “my Aunt.” Mary Ann Bulkley was the estranged sister of the famous painter James Barry. She had suffered financial ruin at the hands of her husband and her eldest son, and was ultimately turned out of their home in Cork, Ireland. She and her daughters went to London, where she sent a letter to her famous brother asking for his assistance. In the postscript of the letter, it is revealed that the hand that wrote it belonged to her daughter Margaret, as Mrs. Bulkley was too upset to write it herself. Handwriting comparisons between that letter and examples of the writing of Dr. James Barry support the conclusion that Margaret Bulkley and James Barry were the same person.

Further evidence supporting this theory was found in documents belonging to Daniel Reardon, Mrs. Bulkley’s solicitor. A Statement of Account from November 28, 1809 describes the disbursal of £10 to “Mrs. Bulkley and Miss Bulkley” and states, “To cash to you on going to Scotland by my Brother.” A letter written to Reardon on December 14th, shortly after their arrival in Edinburgh, states that “Mr. Barry’s Nephew is well received by the Professors,” and is signed by James Barry. On the envelope, however, the solicitor had recorded the name of the sender and the date: “Miss Bulkley, 14 Dec.”

While some historians consider the above to be conclusive proof of James Barry’s real identity being that of Margaret Bulkley, it seems clear that doubt is still possible. The solicitor could have erred and written the cousin’s name on Barry’s letter. Mrs. Bulkley and her daughter could have met Barry in Scotland or on the way there. Mrs. Bulkley and her famous brother James Barry had other siblings; it is possible that Dr. Barry was the offspring of one of them, although there is no evidence to suggest that. The servant, Sophia Bishop, could have been mistaken about the sex of the body she dressed, or she could have created the story out of whole cloth for some reason – perhaps to gain some posthumous revenge against a lodger who could be, by all accounts, a difficult fellow. After all, it is hard to imagine someone being able to sustain a disguise of this nature through an army induction, with its attendant physical examinations, and through a forty-odd year military career.

Hard physical evidence is completely lacking. Barry’s body was buried quickly, owing to the epidemic of dysentery that was rampant at the time of his death. No autopsy was performed, and the death certificate signed by Barry’s physician, Dr. McKinnon, listed his sex as male. The certificate also bears the “X” of Sophia Bishop as a witness, although it is possible and, indeed, probable that she was not able to read the document. Dr. McKinnon, despite having recorded the sex as male at the time of death, later wrote of the allegations:

I had been intimately acquainted with [Barry] for a good many years, both in the West Indies and in England, and I had never had any suspicion that Dr Barry was a female. I attended him during his last illness… I informed [Bishop] that it was none of my business whether Dr Barry was a male or a female, and that I thought he might be neither, viz. an imperfectly developed man.

Disinterment of the body to confirm or refute Bishop’s story was never performed. (Every medical story, it seems, must have a connection to Sir William Osler, and the connection here is this: Osler performed an investigation to discover if an autopsy or a disinterment had ever been done.) It is interesting that nowhere in his writings about the incident does Dr. McKinnon ever state that his assertion that Barry might have been intersex was based on a physical assessment of the patient.

The story of the controversy over Dr. Barry’s sex somehow got out and, unsurprisingly, made sensational headlines. Accounts poured in from scores of people who claimed to have suspected or known in certainty that Barry was a woman. There is only one recorded instance of someone suspecting this prior to Barry’s death, however. Emmanuel de Las Casas, chamberlain to Napoleon, was a prisoner at Cape Town, South Africa, when he met Barry. He described him in his journal, which was published in 1823, as, “a boy of 18 – with the form – the manners and the voice of a woman.”

In addition to asserting that Dr. Barry was a woman, Sophia Bishop made the further claim that the body she dressed had stretch marks on its abdomen consistent with a history of pregnancy. McKinnon recollects Bishop as defending this claim by saying, “I am a married woman, and the mother of nine children, and I ought to know.” No evidence of a child exists, although there is one possibly mysterious gap in Barry’s career that might be explained by hiding to conceal a pregnancy, or Margaret Bulkley could have borne a child prior to becoming James Barry.

It will likely never be established with certainty whether the physician known as James Barry was male, female, or intersex. In many ways, it is sad that the controversy over his sex has come to overshadow what would have been, for anyone, a remarkable medical career. Barry performed one of the first recorded successful Cesarean sections in 1826, and was known throughout the Army as a brilliant and gifted surgeon. He was a tireless advocate for public health and worked diligently to improve the lives of the unfortunate souls living in the South African leper colony that was part of his bailiwick. He challenged the authority of his military superiors in the Army and his civilian superiors at every posting in order to ensure the provision of clean water and a balanced diet to soldiers under his care, and faced repeated reprimands and punishments for his efforts. He worked to regulate the sale of patent nostrums that were at best harmless and at worst poison in order to safeguard both the health and the pocketbooks of the people he served.
Two lessons can be learned from the story of James Barry. The first is that one should always actually examine one’s patients. The second is that, in the long run, it doesn’t matter what James Barry’s sex actually was. His career stands for itself as a testament to a skilled and dedicated physician.


References:
Holmes, Rachel. Scanty Particulars: The Scandalous Life and Astonishing Secret of James Barry, Queen Victoria's Most Eminent Military Doctor. Random House, New York. 2002.
du Preez, Hercules Michael. Dr James Barry: the early years revealed. South African Medical Journal, 2008;98:52-62.