fuckyeahhistorycrushes: James Miranda Stuart Barry (c. 1789-1799 – 25 July 1865) was
fuckyeahhistorycrushes: James Miranda Stuart Barry (c. 1789-1799 – 25 July 1865) was a military surgeon, who rose from a humble hospital assistant to become the Inspector-General, the top ranking doctor in the British Army. He performed one of the first successful Caesarean sections in medical history. He was also born a female, as Margaret Ann Bulkley. It was only after his death from dysentery that his body was autopsied and he was discerned to be biologically female. He had chosen to live his life as a man because women were not allowed to enter medical schools then. He tried to improve sanitary conditions wherever he went and improve the conditions and diet of the common soldier, by introducing the pear. He reacted indignantly to unnecessary suffering, and his insistence on better conditions for poor and commoners annoyed his peers. Barry was the first qualified female British doctor or surgeon known, preceding the next one by over 50 years. -- source link