A Doctor in Disguise: James Barry

As the charwoman prepared Dr. James Barry’s body for burial, she made an unbelievable discovery: the reputed army surgeon was in fact a female. During a time when females were forbidden from studying or practicing medicine, the British Army’s top surgeon was a woman. Dr. James Barry’s story begins in poverty in Ireland, where a young, intelligent girl was desperate for the same opportunities as her brother. Refusing to let the sex of her birth extinguish her ambitions, she disguised herself as a man and entered the harsh, male environment of medicine…where Barry would live with this dangerous secret for over 50 years.

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