19. James Barry
James Barry was a military surgeon and inspector general for the British Army. He was charged with military hospitals and worked in the second-highest medical office in the army during the early 19th century.
Born Margaret Ann Bulkley, Barry had aspirations of being in the military, and when he was 18 years old he chastised his older brother for abandoning legal studies, writing “Was I not a girl I would be a Soldier!” Barry would later prove those words when he chose to live as a man and joined the services across the British Empire.
James Barry fought for hospitals to be safer for his soldier patients. He also performed the first cesarean section in Africa by an Irish surgeon, where the mother and child both survived the operation.
James Barry was forced to retire in 1865 due to illness and elderly age. It was not discovered that Barry was born a woman until after death. The British Army was reportedly so shocked by the news that they blocked access to all of the papers until a historian reopened the case in the 1950s.
