Dr. James Barry: Secret Sex 'n' C-Sections

was great. We got it done really quickly. It was just a lot of heavy crap right. Happy they're here though, Oh yeah, my niece is going to be nearby. So exciting, so adorable. I would say. The biggest thing I learned from that move is something I've long known to be true. I learned the last time we moved is that if I can't fit that stuff in a tied up handkerchief on the back of a stick, I'm not bringing it with medals only. Yeah, Bendel's only for the next move.

Happy New Year, everybody, Happy New Year. Look at that. Welcomed in the year with the song very weird song tone really, I'm so excited for twenty three. I shouldn't say that because I said I was so excited for another year, regular all year, stupid year. It's like bullet train. My expectations are so low. Be shockingly good. I hope you're right. Yeah, fingers crossed. But hey, we got a big story to day, so I don't want to sit around here and banter too much. I say, we get

right into it. Yeah. I think so too, because this is a really good one, A little complicated, awesome, interesting, crazy, really great suggestion also from our listener Milo Ira at bon Mott milo Um on Twitter. I think that he actually suggested this like way back in the day. But I'm so excited at finally beginning to this story because

it was awesome. So today we're gonna be talking about James Barry, who is distinguished military doctor and surgeon who served in Cape Town, South Africa, and was the first European doctor to perform a successful C section where both

the mother and the baby survived. Barry was really well respected despite the fact that he was frequently tactless and he had a very confrontational and personality, but he still had great bedside manner and he instigated a lot of health care policies like better sanitation and hygiene, which improved lives everywhere he went. But after he died, a woman went to the press with a shocking story. Dr James

Barry was a woman. So let's talk about Dr James Berry's life, what people today think about his gender, identity and sexuality, the ironic public accusations of homosexuality with his good friend Charles Somerset, and the run in with Florence Nightingale that cost him a knighthood. I'm very excited. Let's go. Hey, their French com well, Eli and I and I got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, a romantic tips.

It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love there might be any type of person at all, and abstract cons that don't a concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the second clinch, ridiculous roles, the production of iHeart Radio. And before we jump in, just want to quickly say that most of our information about James Barry comes from Michael Dupries and Jeremy drawn Fields seen biography. Dr James

Berry a woman ahead of her time. So Dr James Berry was born Margaret Anne Bulkeley in Cork, Ireland around seventeen eighty nine, and it wasn't an easy childhood. Margaret's father, Jeremiah ran away house, but he was dismissed because of anti Catholic sentiments classic way house problems horrible, so he ended up spending time in debtors prison and Margaret and

her mother Mary Anne had no support. Even worse, in eighteen o four, another he was born, named Julianna, and Jeremiah kicked Julianna, the fifteen year old Margaret, and his wife Mary Anne, out of the house. Many biographers believed that Juliana was actually Margaret's child, born as the result of a childhood's sexual assault, because after Dr Barry died, stretch marks were discovered on his stomach, so people thought at some point he'd had a kid. Interesting, so they

think it was Jeremiah. No, actually they think it was his no count uncle Raymond Barry. Raymond Barry, that bastard. So if that's true, shame on you, Raymond. If it's not true, what a what a an indictment of Raymond Well. Mary Anne wrote to her brother, who was a noted Irish painter and Royal academician Professor James Barry for help. She was hoping that he would fund Margaret's education so

that Margaret could become a teacher. Initially the guy refused, but in February of eighteen oh six he died suddenly after an illness and left a big inheritance to mary Anne, and that allowed her and Margaret to kind of live pretty reasonably comfortable. And then in eighteen o nine, mary Anne received a letter from Jeremiah, her old husband, telling her that he had quote made up his mind to forgive now and for steal in me lucky child. Look,

I got one Irish accented Its hilarious. I'm sorry, um, but see this letter making up his mind to forgive. This suggests that Juliana was mary Anne's child from maybe an affair, and not a secret child of Margaret. Now. There's also no evidence at the time of Margaret displaying any indications of pregnancy. You know, she didn't. No one wrote any journal saying that she had a lot of weight gain or illness or she wasn't you know, sent away for a period of time, which that was a

common cover up for pregnancies back then. Oh oh, Margaret, Well, poor lamb has a green and yellow melancholy. She's been sent to the seaside for her health for randomly about eight or nine months were a normal medical length of time for a melancholy, of course, eight or nine months, it's exactly the recovery period. Oh and I found this child while I was away. Oh my gosh, that was the goodness of my heart. I have adopted a poor

farmer's child now. Mary Anne also made friends with a number of her brother, Professor James Berry's artist friends, and that really came in handy because Margaret was having trouble finding work as a tutor, and plus she really just wanted to be a doctor. She didn't want to be a teacher, but it was illegal for women to go

to medical school in Britain at the time. So Margaret and Mary Anne along with their liberal minded friends Daniel Reardon who is the family solicitor, Dr Edward Fryer who was Margaret's personal tutor, and General Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan revolutionary living in London. What a cast of characters, I know. I was like James Barry's friends were cool. This was some interesting Morgan's board. Well, they put their heads together and they came up with an audacious plan.

If Margaret couldn't be a woman and be a doctor, then she would become a he at least for the length of medical school. And then General Miranda promised Margaret a job in Venezuela as a doctor because he was all about women's education, women's suffrage and stuff like that. So he's like a woman doctor. Sounds great to me. I don't know what the problem is, right, So this would be a three year disguise as Margaret went through medical school, and it had to be carefully done. This

is like reverse Bosom Buddies. They had to dress up as women to go to that our all girls school. That's right. A common plot. I feel like that was there was some dumb movie where they were dressed as women for no reason. I was like that, that's not a thing anymore. Why are you doing it? No bosom Buddies. It was. It was apartment complex that they had to move into that was women only, so they had to dress up as women to pool all their neighbors. I

guess not a show I watched Tom Hanks. Oh, it was like where he started I think take it on back Tom Hanks anyway. So they chose the name James Berry for Margaret since her uncle was dead and wasn't using it anymore. Plus the fact that it was a known name would probably open some doors for her. I don't know if you've ever heard, but in a lot of higher education, who you were born from can really help you out. They chose Edinburgh University because they were

unknown in Scotland. No one was going to be like, you're looking an awful lot like Margaret. Then, on November eighteen o nine, Mary Anne Bulkeley and her nephew James Berry boarded a ship for Edinburgh, and Margaret Bulkeley was no more. James even wrote to the solicitor, Daniel Reardon quote, it was very useful for miss is Bulkeley, my aunt, to have a gentleman to take care of her on

board the ship, and to have one in a strange country. Yes, this is actually the letter that pretty much shed light on James Berry's early life, on his life as Margaret Ann Bulkeley, because even though it was signed he signed at James Berry, Daniel reared in I guess in like filing it away. He wrote the name miss Bulkeley on

the outside of the envelope. So that's the discovery that the biographers Michael Duprees and Jeremy Dronfield found in their research to be like, oh, the nephew James Barry is the same as the daughter Margaret Anne one and the same Miss Bokeley is James Berry. So Janie Rearden not exactly keeping up appearances by writing Miss Bulkeley on this Oh, by the way, Berry's actually you gave it away, Daniel, although it turned out to be very useful for us

historically so well. James Berry at this point also started to fudge his birthdate. Different sources say that James's birthdate was in seventeen ninety two or seventeen nine five, because he had to explain his youthful appearance. Yeah, you know, they're like, why is that man so pretty? He got such curly hair and the hairless face. It was, you know. Once he got to Edinburgh, the University Senate decided that James Barry must be hiding something and they denied his admission.

He had this short stature and a high pitched voice, no facial hair, delicate features. The all points the one thing James body is no man, he's actually boy. James wipes some sweat away. He's like, yeah, that's me, just a fifteen year old prodigy, young boy, that's what's wrong with me. Unfortunately, James Berry had a friend named David Stewart Erskine, who is the eleventh Earl of Buchan, and he persuaded them to let James into the school. So

in eighteen twelve James qualified as a doctor. He moved to London a year later past the surgeon's exam, and now it's time for James to get a job as a full doctor doctor Jade Barry. But the job that General Miranda had promised Margaret Bulkeley was impossible. Now Miranda's revolution and Venezuela had failed and he had been captured and imprisoned in eighteen twelve. Randa, you gotta keep up your end of the bargain here. Sorry, I try. You

promised me you would win your revolution. What had happened? I thought I would. Turns out they're kind of hard to do. So James Barry needed a new plan. Now, Britain had quite a few wars going on at this point, and they were actively seeking doctors in the British Army,

so James Barry joined up as a hospital assistant. By eighteen fifteen he was an assistant surgeon on par with a lieutenant, and he received a posting to Cape Town, South Africa, and Lord Buchan once again smooth the way for James by providing a letter of introduction to the colonies governor, Lord Charles Somerset. But James Barry won a

firm place in Lord Charles Somerset's heart. When Somerset's daughter fell ill right after Barry had arrived in Cape Town, Barry took care of her and she made a complete recovery, and this made Lord Charles Somerset so grateful that he promoted James Barry to his personal physician. Barry immediately made

a reputation for himself. He was very interested in the relatively new field of preventative medicine, so he used to throw all these improvements to like water and santation systems and the living quarters of enslaved people or prisoners or the mentally ill. And he had a sanctuary setup for

people with leprosy. He was like, maybe the people with the infectious disease shouldn't live in the same place as just the thought and maybe what if we put other people in places that weren't crawling with diseases and and just gave him a nice bed to sleep, and so they didn't show up sick to work the next day, they might live. One article described it as um as having an appreciation of health care as well as sick care.

And I really liked that distinction. Yeah. Now. An article in new scientists dot com says that his patients came from all walks of life, and they were treated with equal kindness and expertise like. Women especially found him ideal, They said, quote a person of breeding who showed consideration to his patients and who understood the complaints of women. That's what a woman sounds like to me, Just so you know, that's my impression. That's uh yeah, sorry, all

women sound like that to me. And I have to have a conversation after this so you can hear my voice more often. Yeah, there's one thing I never hear, it's your voice. Uh. James Berry also instituted regular checks on the soldiers and their medical facilities. He improved hygiene and living conditions for the true quote in those days, when the enlisted soldier was treated with little respect, poorly fed,

and suffered harsh discipline. Alcoholism and venereal disease were rice, and families who accompanied soldiers were treated almost on par with prostitutes and other camp followers. Right, So James is just like is like this is bullshit. It's like coming in, like what the funk are y'all doing? Stop treating people like ass and they will stop getting as sick as ass. Pretty that's you put. You took the words right out of James Berry. That James Berry might have been a

little short. He often wore shoes with three inch soules so he could stand a little taller. But he was considered very handsome in his day. He had curly red hair and a winning smile when he felt like being charming, and he was also a strict vegetarian and teetotaler. He took a goat with him everywhere he went, and he only drank goat's milk, So so he's got a personal drink dispenser at all times. It's like, how don't really yeah a little soda stream today, I'm going to get

goat's milk. Baja blast God. As we've said, James Barry did have a very quick temper. He could be very overbearing and rude. I mean, you know, we laughed about him coming and be like, what the funk are y'all doing? But that is kind of the vibe that you get from the research. But he could also be tender and kind and quite flirtatious with the lady. In fact, he behaved scandalously enough with one lady that her close friend, Captain Chloete, challenged Barry to a duel with pistols. Dah,

you'll speak to my woman friend that way. I was like, what did he do? Now? This was already illegal at the time in the British Army, so they had to duel in secret. Some sources say that Barry had better aim and took the peek off the captain's hat, and others say that Barry received a flesh wound but simply retired to his quarters and took care of the wound him self, and then showed up a couple of days later,

acting like nothing had happened. Either way, Barry and the captain became great friends for the rest of James Berry's lin So I guess it was one of those situations like we just got to fight it out and now we're cool, cool, get that out of the way, like just duel already, am I right now? All right? Get to get a dueling ground already. Well. Then a round twenty, Dr Barry was asked to attend to a woman named Mrs Munnick, and she was having trouble delivering a baby.

Dr Barry decided to perform an emergency C section, and at this point five percent of the time that meant the mother would die. But James Barry went for it, and he became the first European doctor to perform a successful C section in the British Empire, where both the mother and the baby lived. Now it needs all those little qualifiers because it becomes clear that indigenous Africans managed

successful C section operations frequently actually. According to the National Institute of Health, a British traveler named Robert Falcon witnessed a c section in Uganda in eighteen seventy nine and described the treatment, which involved banana wine to semi intoxicate and therefore like anesthetize the mother, and then he made the incision and used a paste made from roots to

dress it and encourage healing. The ni h Rites quote the patient recovered well, and Falcon concluded that this technique was well developed and had clearly been employed for a long time. Similar reports come from Rwanda, where botanical preparations were also used to anesthetize the patient and promote wound healing. So you see, it's not the first C section ever. Obviously this was happening in Africa, Uh, you know, on a level that white people didn't want to admit or

be familiar with. But it was the first one performed by European doctors. That's still pretty impressive. Yeah, take a win, James. Sometimes you see memes or very short articles about James Berry that say he performed the first successful C section period. Mrs Munnick and her husband Thomas were so grateful that they asked Barry to be the godfather of their new infant,

and they named him James Berry Munnick. And this name was passed down through generations until James Berry Munnick Hurtzog, who was South Africa's Prime Minister in nineteen Pretty cool, what a legacy. So James Berry's crushing in South Africa. In fact, by eighteen two, Lord Charles Somerset promoted him to Colonial Medical Inspector which was a huge jump in

rank and responsibility. That same year, Barry introduced smallpox vaccination to the Cape, twenty years before it was introduced in England. He was made a member of the Vaccine Institute and an inspector for the Leprosy Institute. US Medicine dot Com writes quote Dr Barry was without question a pioneer in those fields we now call health promotion and preventive medicine. The fact that he received so little record mission for extending the frontiers of military medicine seems mainly due to

his ability to upset the establishment with monotonous regularity. Plus Barry's close friendship with Lord Charles Somerset started the rumor mill turning, and we'll hear more about that right after this commercial break. Welcome back to the show, y'all. So, James Barry, as we said, could be extremely tactless and rude when he was crusading for better conditions for soldiers in the sick and he would clash with his superiors all the time. But Lord Charles Somerset always managed to

smooth things over and protect James for many repercussions. In eighteen twenty four, their close friendship was used against them because a poster suddenly appeared, prominently displayed where the whole town could see it, declaring that Lord Charles Somerset had ben seen buggering Dr James Berry. And even though this poster was torn down real quick, the rumors spread like wildfire like they do, and did not die. In fact, it actually turned into a major scandal. You know, once

you post a poster, it's there forever. It's like the Internet, you know, people see it. It ain't going away. Now. Here's where scholars are not a hundred percent sure the facts. Some say that Lord Somerset knew James's secret and that they did have a physical affair, and maybe we're even in love. But if that's the case, Somerset really proved himself to be a solid gold friend because we already know that it was illegal to be gay at this

time in Britain or anywhere in the British Empire. Now, as a lord and governor, it's not super likely that Charles Somerset would have faced the harshest punishments like transportation, imprisonment, or death. But at the very least, if he could not beat these accusations, Somerset would be socially ruined, his career in tatters. He would be forced to like laylow

somewhere in shame and discomfort. So consequences like that that could lead any friends to betray another, Right, it would be very easy for him to be like, I'm not gay, because that's not a man, you know, like very quick to solve that problem for himself. But if he did know that James was really a woman, he never said a word. So some historians do believe that Somerset had no idea and they really just had a close personal friendship and no one found out anything until James Barry

died and his body was inspected. Interesting, so we don't really know how much romance was really going on between these two. Could they have been doing it in such a way that Somerset didn't know well that My speculation station is that Somerset had a barongier of the long ass situation. Y'all haven't heard that episode. You're going to be very confused by this reference. Maybe James was into it and he's like, all right, we can do this, and he's he's like, let me get let me get

back there. Wow, you've got a really long assholes in the back and goes all the way to up front a guy. This was an actual poem written way back in the day medieval times, where a guy a night, a woman dressed as a night beat him and flashed her ass at him. She made him kiss her as she made him kiss her ass, and he thought then instead of there being a volva there, it was just a very long ass crack. He simply could not get

into his brain that this could be a lady. So he was like, this guy must just have our real insane asshole station Somerset had the same situation as a long asshole. Amazing. Well, a government investigation was launched to examine the truth of these accusations. You know, a poster goes up and we got to get the government and oh yeah, well either there's some gay sex going on which is illegal, or somebody saying something against the governor,

which is also not cool. So yeah, now there's a sub stack ran by a transit storian, David Obermeyer notes on a Gentleman dot com which is all about James Berry, and it says that this was the work of a guy named William Edwards, an ex solicitor who already didn't like Lord Charles Somerset, and he'd been accusing his government of corruption for years, mostly because he thought Somerset showed too much preference and lenience to his friends, including James Berry.

This guy's already saying James Berry and Somerset are too close, and I don't like the way it's shaken out. And oh, by the way, maybe they're buggering each other. Right, I know how to get some action around by accusations. I'll say this now. Edwards friend, George Greeg was also accused of putting up the poster. They did. It's a two man job to put up a poster. He was the guy who ran a local paper that Somerset had actually been trying to shut down because summer Set wasn't exactly

a fan of freedom of the press. So Edwards and Greek both accused of this kind of slander, and they were tried and convicted of false accusations, and Edwards was transported. He got shipped out of the country off somewhere else. And now, as Obermeyer points out, we have no record of how Somerset and James felt about this, except for an account that James uncharacteristically quote burst into angry tears

when he was told about the poster. Other than that we got nothing, we don't really know exactly, you know, how they felt about this. Was this something that was accurate or was it just some horrible things some mean person said. But the scandal is part of the reason that Lord Charles Somerset left Cape Colony in eighty six after his term as governor ended. And then also James Barry was given a new posting in Mauritius, probably related

to this. Yeah, so they each had to leave Cape Town and each other with these accusations, even though they were found false. And David Obermeyer in his article Infamy and Infidelity has a lot of interesting research about how this scandal kind of happened at a time when accusations of sodomy we're tied up with class conflict and government corruption. So kind of we just said, William was like, I'm

yelling about government corruption and nobody cares. I know, I'll make a real crazy something they have to look into. And that's because there was a case in eighteen eleven where this bishop and member of parliament his name is Percy Joscelyn was accused of sexually assaulting a coachman named James Byrne. So just some guy, you know, a poor man who was driving this coach and Percy uses his

influence to completely escape punishment. He got all these wealthy man all his friends to come to court and be like, oh, my friend Percy wouldn't ever, he's a upstanding gentleman, an MP. Where is this coachman? What a poor man from nowhere? No one knows him. Why would you like take his word over this gentleman's word? So no problem. He everything got dismissed. But then Percy doubled down and sued Burned

for libel, just for accusing him in the first place. Now, eventually Burne was forced to sign a statement saying that he had lied about being sexually assaulted by Percy, and he was publicly flogged and nearly die well. Ten years later, Percy Jocelyn Is arrested again for having sex with a soldier in a tavern, and everybody realized, oh ship, James Byrne was telling the truth of all time. So this whole, this whole situation kind of made this case a symbol

of class conflict Overmyer writes quote. What better way to characterize the aristocracy's cruelty and predatory intent towards the working class than a lord who had not only gotten away with sexually assaulting a working class man, but managed to get the man beaten to within an inch of his

life for daring to speak up at all. So he's basically saying that William and George and whoever was involved with this poster, they knew that when they accused Barry and Somerset of sodomy that would sort of wrap all in all their complaints about government overreach and rules of

law for one class versus another. And that also they kind of knew that James Berry, who at this point in his life should have been respectably married with kids, you know, according to the grand traditions of society, would suffer more from these accusations than Lord Charles Somerset because he's a social nonconformist already, so everybody is very willing to believe anything weird you want to say about him.

In fact, a lot of the whispers were, oh, Lord Charles Somerset was seen with James Berry's wife, Dr Berry's wife, and since he didn't have a wife, everybody knew what that meant, and they would say, Oh, he's not the kind to ever have a wife, you know what I mean. It was like became very sly crazy shit about James Berry, which would have worked for William because he didn't like James Burry. So he's like, great, I want this guy

to be really uncomfortable. David Oberbier concludes the article quote. Although the Somerset and Barry sodomy scandal has been given little attention by Barry's biographers, it stands at an interesting intersection of social tensions around governmental oversight, social reform, and the disruptive power of non normative sex, both at home

in Britain and abroad. Damn. So, ultimately it all came down to I got other things I want to get taken care of, so let me put this flashy poster up to get everyone's attention, right, Like I even said, I thought, well, Lord Charles Somerset is a lord. You know, he's a governor, and what's gonna happen. You know, he's just gonna pay people off or something like. They don't. That don't that's the point. They don't suffer in the

same way as the rest of us. But at this time, after this this Percy Jocelyn case, it did become more common to accuse lords of sodomy. And I think that's why it was like, Oh, you care about this, so that's what we'll do in that investigation. Maybe you'll uncoverag some other bullshit, or at least it will be in the papers and we can ruin this guy's reputation. Well,

and it's interesting. I mean, you know, if Charles Somerset is just handing out jobs to his friends, you know, I've been thinking, like, James Barry had a lot of people looking out for him and given him privileges that other people might not have had. And fortunately he turned out to be an amazing person who changed the world for the better. But if he had not, he'd just be some other twerp who got you know, a bunch of handouts, you know, from from rich family members and friends.

Uh and somebody, you know, he took someone's slot at that school. Well, that's always the problem with nepotism is that you're like, well, you have to hope that the person is good, and that's not always true because part of the problem with this is that there was this whole kerfuffle where James Barry is like, all these people are coming to South Africa and opening pharmaceutical like apothecaries and stuff, and they're selling medicine, but the medicine is

not real medicine, it's snake oil. So he's like, I want to be the one who licensed all the apothecaries in Cape Town. And so people are like, oh, James Berry's just power hungry. He's controlling, you know, But he actually had a really good reason for that, like he's like, I want to make sure that this is legit what

you're selling to these people, um and so. But somebody wanted their friends to have the job, so he was always clashing with someone else who's wanted their friend to come in and James was like no, and his friend is protecting him, on and on. So it's just it was like two shitty nepotisms at the same Well. Despite Charles Somerset and James Berry parting ways after these accusations and having to go take new jobs, everything that went down,

their friendship endeared. In fact, when James found out that Charles Somerset had fallen seriously ill in eighty nine, James went a wall to return to England and take care of his friend, and he remained there until Somerset died in eighteen thirty one, and when he was asked why he left his post, James Barry apparently said, quote, I was fed up with my hair and wanted a proper haircut, which to which his superior Director General, Sir James McGregor

reportedly replied, quote it would seem, sir, that your audacity is equal to the prodigious growth of your hair. I love these wordy eighteenth century Yeah. But you know, despite just dipping to go take care of his friend, James Barry was welcomed back into the army anyway, and he went off to Jamaica and then St. Helena, and in St. Helena his temper reared its ugly head again and James was court martialed and tried for quote conduct unbecoming the

character of an officer and a gentleman. What in the world he pulls off his hat and it's like, I am no gentleman. Well, there's no word on what this behavior was. But he was found not guilty and he was honorably acquitted, so you know, probably the same deal. He probably just piste off the wrong guy again with

some sharp words. Yeah. He was on the Greek island of Courtfu when the Crimean War broke out in eighteen fifty four, and Barry's hospital took wounded soldiers who had managed to survive the insanely bad conditions at the medical hospital in Scutari in istanbul As. The Scutari hospital had a lot of the features of military hospitals that Barry objected most strenuously to. No hygiene, poor sanitation, no equipment to process food for the patients, overworked staff, and first

of all official indifferent. They're kind of like, do what you gotta do. I don't care that man's bleeding. Pack some mud in there and call it a day and put him next to the healthy guy exactly. And I'm busy right now. Just slices slices arm off and call it a day. Uh. New policy in the hospital. All the sick patients should make out with the staff that that'll that'll work out great. We need to give them more antibodies through saliva. It's it will work out fine

well with policies like that. Obviously, mass infections were common and usually fatal. US Medicine dot Com writes quote. Dr Barry received in all, four hundred and sixty two casualties from Scutari, and there were only seventeen debts in his hospital. Obviously, the casualties that were fit enough to travel to Corfu were not as seriously wounded as those confined to Scutari, but it is still a remarkable statistic for its day. Good job. Just is a great doctor, James Barry crushing it.

Another person objected strenuously to the conditions of soldiers in Crimean military hospitals, and her name was Florence Nightingale. Now she gained her fame by showing up in Scutari with a bunch of nurses. She wrote please to the government, being like, you don't understand these dreadful conditions, and then she helped transform the hospital into a much cleaner one with proper sanitation, more available medicines, better diet, be ter hygiene.

That rate sharply dropped. That's great. I have nothing negative to say about Florence Nighton That's right. She's a great historical hero. Now you think, with so much in common that Florence Nightingale and James Berry would get along gangbusters. But let us assure you they did not. No, they met in eighteen fifty seven when Dr Barry's friend Fitzroy Somerset, who's Lord Charles Somerset's brother, who was also now called Lord Raglan, and yes, for the fashion forward among us,

the Raglan sleeve is named for him. Oh well, there you go. Well, Lord Raglin invited Barry to Crimea to hang out. Battlefield seems like a weird place for a friendly visit, but if you heard our recent episode about Lady Seymour Worseley, you'll know that battlefield tourism was actually a favorite pastime with the aristocracy. They love to see how it all went down. I could never die now.

James Barry met Florence Nightingale on a visit to the proved Scutari Hospital, and there's no details of this argument recorded anywhere, but reports say that they quote disliked each other on site way in the future. When Florence Nightingale heard about James Barry's death, she called him, quote the most hardened creature that I have ever met in my life. Now. Unfortunately for Barry, Florence Nightingale was also kind of a

big deal at this point in her life. She had revolutionized the idea of nursing and advocated for better conditions and hospitals that led to fewer deaths from infection and disease. She also had a lot of influence with the War Office, and in eighteen fifty seven she may have been the one to instigate a transfer for Dr Barry to Canadian Command in Montreal as Inspected General of Hospitals at the rank of Major General and US Medicine writes that quote.

In this way, she ensured that he never became Director General or received the traditional knighthood that went with the top job. So one of those like, oh, it's like when um once transferred Captain Holts. You know, it's like, oh, this is a promotion for you, and it totally screws your career. That's right, It's very much like that sounds really good, but actually wow, So a very onunch Holt

rivalry between these two. I hope they had similar insults and forth, you grackle and who wouldn't want to see a man fight a crocodile? Oh, Florence Nightingale, But if you're here, who's guarding hades? Now? Even though Barry is sixty years old by now and in failing health, he still grabbed this Canadian command job with his usual fervor. He campaigned for and got a better diet for soldiers. He improved drainage and sewerage in the barracks, and he

replaced straw palette with hair mattresses and hair and feather pillows. Listen, I said, hair mattress, excuse me? But then I was like, I guess feathers isn't any weirders? Sounds of whose hair is it? What kind of hair? The animal hair, human hair? I don't know if I want to know, but I guess it was better than whatever the straw they were sleeping on. James Barry also went against opposition from every level of the army to institute separate living quarters for

married soldiers. Before Barry, married soldiers and their wives lived with single soldiers twenty two a room, and they just had a thin sheet sort of dividing them from all the fellas. So imagine trying to get get close in those conditions. Not great US Medicine says that Barry thought this led to the dehumanizing of families and contributed to alcoholism and venereal disease. So he created separate accommodations for them,

and he clamped down on alcohol use. Now we are know James Barry is a teetotaler, so he's probably like alcohol sucks anyway, But US Medicine writes quote, alcohol was universally consumed in huge quantities. It was seen as an essential part of military life, despite the fact that it was the single greatest contributor to accidental deaths at the time. Many a soldier died from hypothermia while sleeping in a drunken stupor. So it does seem like another thing if

you're like, I'm here to keep people alive. That's my whole point. Uh, here's a quick one. Let's not make out on the mouth without somebody who is leprosy and also stopped drinking. Now, the same year that Barry was posted to Canada, which is eighteen fifty seven, Florence Nightingale's Royal Commission on Army Health was formed, and this was intended to improve and observe conditions in military hospitals scientific

American Rights quote. After ten years of sanitary reform, in eighteen seventy three, Nightingale reported that mortality among the soldiers in India had decline from sixty nine to eighteen per

one thousand. Nice, that's a huge drop. But as US Medicine writes quote, even though it was widely known that doctor James Barry was responsible for devising and initiating many of the reforms the Royal Commission endorsed, Florence Nightingale appears to have been instrumental in ensuring that he never received more than a passing recognition. He paid dearly for their spat in the crimean war. Damn Wow, Florence Nightingale holds a grood. Who would have thought that she's the villain

of the week in my opinion? Well, also, what did James Berry say? I do want to know? I wish I could be there. That's one of those things. I'm like, if I could be the fly on the wall, that would be such a great conversation to hear, because you know, he was like, you aren't doing enough for something. You know, he was like, whatever it was, it cut deep. Now.

There's something interesting about Florence nighting Else that she didn't not respect women very much, herself being one and you know, feeling that there was a place for women in medicine. She actually didn't really have a lot of use for women. She didn't like women. She preferred men a lot. So I'm like, is that weird? Is there something weird with like did she kind of like unconsciously be like that's a lady and I don't trust her. I don't know, or like you said, James Barry is just a bit

of a jerk. Well, in eighteen fifty nine, Dr Barry became ill with pneumonia and he was sent home to England. Later that year, he was placed on half pay and forced to retire despite his strenuous objections. So he went on home to London with only his servants and his dog for company. But during a very hot month in the summertime, Dr Barry contracted dysentery and on July eighteen sixty five, Dr James Berry died at seventy years old. Now, for most people that would be the end of the story,

but not Dr Barry. His story was basically just beginning. So we'll find out more about of that right after these words welcome back. After James Berry's body was discovered, his usual doctor, Major McKinnon was called in to declare James debt. Dr McKinnon had known James Berry for years,

so he didn't even bother to examine his body. He just wrote up a death certificate, and a day later, an unnamed nobleman's valet arrived to take away Barry's dog and his personal papers, and he gave his servants some money to return to Jamaica. That was that boring death stories. But then a char woman was brought in to prepare the body for burial, and many sources say there's no clear indication of who this was, although US Medicine calls

her Sophia Bishop. She stripped the body to wash it and redress it in burial clothes, as was her job, but only to discover to her amazement that genitally speaking, Dr Barry was a woman. What Sophia even suspected that James Barry had been a mother, given that he had some stretch marks on his stomach. As we had mentioned at the beginning of the episode, that secret baby Juliana

that might have been his. Now, apparently Sophia was having trouble getting paid for her funeral services, so she marched right to Dr McKinnon, and she demanded that he pay her right then and there, or she would go straight to the press. Not long after, Dr McKinnon received a letter from the General Register Office asking him to verify her claims right there, like, we got a death certificate here that says a guy died, but this lady saying

a lady died. What's going on now? Dr McKinnon wrote in response that he had known Dr Barry for years. He attended him as a physician. He never suspected a thing about his gender, one way or the other, and he continued quote On one occasion after Dr Barry's death, I was sent for to the office of Sir Charles at Gregor, and there the woman who performed the last offices for doctor Barry was waiting to speak to me.

She wished to obtain some perquisites of her employment, which the lady who kept the lodging house in which Dr Barry died had refused to give her. Amongst other things, she said Dr Barry was a female, and that I was a pretty doctor not to know this, and that she would not like to be attended by me. She then said that she had examined the body and that it was a perfect female, and farther that there were marks of her having a child. When very young. I

then inquired, how have you formed this conclusion? The woman, pointing to the lower part of her stomach, said, from Mark's here. I am a married woman and the mother of nine children, and I ought to know. The woman seemed to me to think that she had become acquainted with a great secret and wished to be paid for keeping it. I had formed her that all doctor Barry's relatives were dead, and that it was no secret of mine, and that my own impression was that doctor Barry was

a hermaphrodite. But whether doctor Barry was male female or her for died, I do not know, nor had I any purpose in making the discovery. I love this letter. This lady is so rude. I love her being like you, what a ship doctor you are? Well, you know she's trying to get paid. Somebody wasn't paying her, and you know she should get paid, I guess, but I guess they don't work out. Who does that if somebody right like has no immediate family nearby? What a weird Well.

Dr McKinnon said, it ain't my job, and he refused to pay this later it ain't my secrets, and as promised, she made the story public and of course, it's spread like wildfire. Letters appeared in print from people who knew Berry, either claiming to have known all along or expressed complete disbelief our old buddy. Charles Dickens even wrote a fictitious account of James Barry's life in eighteen sixty seven in

his weekly literary magazine All the Year Round. And it's in this where Dickens gave the name Black John two, Barry's servant. It's the only place know of the servant to be named generally referred to as John. Yeah, if you look up this story, you might see John other places, but apparently originated with Charles's imagination. Now, this whole scandal such a kerfuffle that the British Army chose to seal Dr James Berry's records for a hundred years a little embarrassed.

I guess he was buried as Dr James Berry, Inspector General of Hospitals. And it wasn't until the nineteen fifties that historian Isabel Ray gained access to the army records and concluded that he was the niece of the painter James Berry. And it wasn't until sixteen that all the pieces of James's life were put together by Michael Duprez and Jeremy Dronfield. So of course the remaining questions are pretty impossible to answer without James Berry himself here to

answer them. And David Obermeyer dedicates a couple of articles arguing that the insistence on James Berry having had a child and even the attribution of his full name being James Miranda Stewart Berry, which you will see a lot if you If you type in James Berry doctor, it comes up as James Miranda Berry all the time. But James Berry never used the name Miranda himself and any of his letters, he never used it. So where did

Miranda come from? So David Obermeyer's argument is that that's sort of a way from modern historians or modern thinkers to underline and emphasize that this was a woman and not a man. So they really want to hammer home Miranda a female name. They really want to hammer home this kid so that you are making sure you think, oh,

this is a lady in men's clothes. Um. Now, Obermeyer points out first of all that James doesn't use the names Miranda or Stewart in any of his papers, and also that The American Academy of Dermatology cites several reasons aside from pregnancy, that a person may have stretch marks on their stomach, including sudden growth, sudden gaining or losing of weight, gaining muscle mass, certain genetic can to sans.

We also do know that James had a dysenterry, so it is possible that they had a lot of weight loss and that might be where that came from. There's also no real evidence that a baby ever happened. As we mentioned in the start, Julianna, the young sister, has been pretty convincingly linked to James's mother having an affair rather than James himself having a baby. But this pregnancy, whether it existed or not, is enough evidence for some

that James was and wanted to be a woman. Obermeyer shares a tweet from eighteen that says, quote, they're trying to trans another woman who defied stereotypes and pretended to be a man so she could practice medicine. James Barry born Margaret Anne Bulky also gave birth to a baby, So one female, A lot of problem, a lot of

a lot of presuppositions in this week. For sure, it's really not fair to say that we know some transman can definitely have babies and have had babies, um, and it's weird to say that's something that might have happen, and before she chose to transition has anything to do with him. Now you know what I mean? Right? The Guardian also has an article detailing a debate that sprung up after a new novel about James Berry's life came out that only used she her pronounce for James and

called him quote a heroine for our time. Novelist Celeste Ning wrote that quote many are telling you Berry himself used and wanted he him pronounce, and writer Alexandra Aran tweeted quote, he categorized himself as a man, lived as a man, died as a man, and would have preferred to be buried as a man. There's no room for interpretation. The author of the novel in question, E. J. Levy, wrote that quote in death as in life, Dr Barry and Gender's controversy, but one thing is clear. She refused

facile gender categories. So do I in my novel to insist Barry as trans distorts complex history. There's no evidence Barry considered herself trans. She dressed as a man as needed to be a soldier doctor. I used she her

pronouns as her biographers do, right. But some of these biographers clapped back on that because another of James's biographers, whose name is Rachel Holmes, wrote The Secret Life of Dr James Barry in two thousand two, and Rachel told The Guardian that using female pronouns was quote really quite disrespectful.

As a young feminist. When I set out to write this book, which was based on PhD research, I thought I was writing a story of a woman who cross dressed in search of fame and fortune because she couldn't become a doctor wearing skirts. I was struck very quickly when I started doing research that this wasn't the case at all. In her opinion, Dr Barry had androgen insensitivity syndrome, meaning he was genetically male but had female or ambiguous genitalia.

Let's sort of put Rachel Holmes in agreement with our major Dr McKinnon, who thought Barry might be right, who thought Barry might be a hermaphrodite, or we would call it intersects today. Holmes believes that today James Barry would identify as a trans man, but some are not so sure one way or the other, like one Cardiff professor and an author, Ann Heilman does think that by today's standards, James would be trans, given that he not only lived and presented as a man to the outside world, but

in his private life as well. But still, she tells the Guardian quote, I don't think that Barry can be easily mapped onto contemporary trans thought, though of course there

have always been trans people. The lived and felt gender identity of an eighteenth and nineteenth century person would have been very different from our contemporary identity politics and Jeremy Dronfield, who co authored the biography Dr James Barry, a woman ahead of her time with Michael Duprez, says he chose to use male pronouns throughout, saying that when Margaret first

became a man, it was intended to be temporary. And he tells the Guardian quote, there's evidence that Barry missed being a woman, but we also know that he relished being a man, his behavior exceeding what was necessary for disguise. But he says the claim that Barry left a will asking to be remembered as a man is false, so we don't have any definitive idea of how he thought

of himself. Jon Field concludes, quote, if Margaret had been born in ninety nine instead of seventeen eighty nine, free to be a surgeon and soldier, would she have chosen to become a man? On balance? I don't think so, but Margaret might have identified as non binary. I have no argument with seeing James Barry as a transgender icon or Margaret as a feminist role model. I do take issue with those who insist on recognizing one and erasing

the other. Yeah, I like that too, because I think this comes up a lot for us where you have women who were incredibly constrained by their gender. So it wasn't any expression of I wish I were a man, wasn't about their body. It was about how they got to move through the world and how much freedom they had, and how much choice they had and how many options they had, and where they could travel and with whom

and where you know. Um. Some people are arguing now that Louisa may Alcott would be a transman because she wrote a lot, you know, I wish I were a man with that I were a man, But it was a lot to do with because women aren't allowed to do what I want to do, so I wish I were dude so I could do what I want to do, rather than I wish women were allowed to do what I want to do, you know what I mean, like the society around it, it seemed easier to change your

own gender than to change the society that you were living in. I guess well, And there's value in kind of re examining people, you know in history through you know, all of our modern understandings and not even understandings, but just conversations and theories and things that were coming up with now. And I think, as drown Field says, it

can be both. I mean this is this is a person who died a long as time ago and has no idea what we're talking about today in terms of how they would identify, how they would move through the world. It's totally incomparable in a lot of ways. So is their value in James Barry as a trans icon. Absolutely is their value in saying this person Margaret Born, a woman, grew up and found a way through the world to be a doctor when women weren't allowed to. Yeah, there's

value in that story too. Um and then just kind of you know, intellectual arguing about which one is more accurate seems kind of frivolous. You can see why it matters in a way just from that tweet that we read that Obermeyer shared, because the tweet is very aggressive. It's very much like they're trying to do a thing again and stay a lady. But there definitely were a lady, not a man. I don't want to hear that, you know.

It's just very defensively written, So you can see why somebody would be like, I really want to let you know that that's not the case. I I do want there. I want to be able to point to to ambiguously trans people through history, so you're not saying that my lived experience is just some little fat or trend that I'm trying to do or whatever. And there are lots

of people like James Barry. There's several people through history women who dressed like men in order to do really brave, very courageous things like fighting wars and crazy ship or the opposite, like the Bosom Buddies. But they're not allowed to have the apartment, you know, or or um or be a jazz musician or whatever. You know like there's there's so many. There's a few on our list that we're definitely gonna get to and in some cases, the

jazz musician, for example, is Billy Tipton. They certainly wanted to be a man that was That is pretty unambiguous with others. It's really just like, I have this spirit in me and this courage in me that I want to be out there doing these things that only men get to do. So what do I care. I'll put some pants on if you care so much, Fine, I don't care. But they didn't have any kind of dysmorphia about who they were necessarily, but it was just about

feeling constrained by your society. So in a way, this part is also feeling constrained by society. You know, Obermeyer clearly feels a little constrained by society and wants to prove like this person was a man and I need that. I need that to be true, and some people really need it to not be true. Right, So I like that quote from Jeremy John Felt as well because it felt like the most encompassing of it. I think it's true that there's really no way to know. There is

no answer in a modern context. You know, there is only the exact story of James Barry's life is all we have, you know, and we can't say, well, but if today you know, because I don't know, if you know, taking it out of a gender conversation, if George Washington were alive today, would he have been a revolutionary general? Or would he have been a podcaster? Like you know, who knows? I don't know. I can't say that he probably would have been a podcaster. It probably would have

been the word military history with George Washington. I don't. I don't feel good about what his podcast would have probably not. I do find it a little weird that E. J. Levy is up here being like, oh, I used she her pronouns like her biographers do, and then immediately biographers are like, that's really disrespectful, like what biographies are you reading? Then? But then Jeremy john Field is like, I used him pronouns. But the book is called A Woman ahead of Her Time?

So how did you use male pronouns throughout the book when you're talking? You know, you immediately told me that you're talking about a woman. Well, and he wrote that with Michael Dupris, did they alternate chapters. I know, right, Maybe I don't know, but um, like I guess E. J. Levy was reading only the biographers who used she her pronouns or who only used the seventies or the fifties biographies,

was select. Yeah, But Charles Dickens, even when he was writing the article, in all the year long of James Barry's life, still called him a man, still called him he Most people did. So it's so interesting to me that like they managed the pronouns better than that we do now. But yeah, it's a it's a fascinating tale

though about James Barry. And there's never a time that he seemed to consider leaving the army or the medical profession to like, I don't know, get married and have kids or anything like that that you might expect him to want at some point in his life. Um No, he was like, I want to be a doctor. This is what I want. I'm doing what i want, so I'm happy with this. And as far as we know, he lived as a man in private as well. There's no like dress at home that he put on to

feel like himself or something he felt like himself. So you know, the the main lesson I think is that when society gets off their boot off your neck, you can feel like yourself in any number of clothes or roles and it doesn't have to mean one thing or another about your sexuality. What a nice lesson my next, society, stick of your ship with the heavy boots on our next.

I now right, we're really suffering over here. No, but I really want to thank Milo Ira at Bond Milo for this great suggestion because it was a really interesting story to look into. And I love James Barry. I I really you have to. You have to admire the courage of this person's convictions, because however they felt, they were like, let me get in, I want to get my hands dirty and I want to make things better, and honestly didn't seem to really care about this credit

thing or this knighthood like that. That's shitty of Florence Nightingale. But there's no indication that James Barry particularly cared. You know, for him, it was like I want to practice the medicine, and who amongst us is willing to go toe to toe with Florence Nightingale. You know, maybe it's about time somebody said something with James Barry spoke up. I love the idea though, of like Florence Nightingale having shown up and done all this work and improved conditions like a

lot maybe. And then James Barry shows up and he's like, what's this ship? Looks like trash? You should see my hospital in Corfu, you know what I mean. And she's like, I'm sweating over here. I should have seen it a week ago. Oh dare you, sir? Like Florence Nightingale, I don't know if you heard, I might be somebody and I'm gonna really make you heard for this conversation. Well, thanks again, Milo, and if you like them, have a

suggestion for us, please send it our way. Our email is ridic Romance at gmail dot com right or reach out on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Dynamite Boom and I'm at Oh Great, It's Eli and the show is at ridic Romance. Don't forget to drop us a review on Apple Podcast. Thanks for joining us in the new year, and we can't wait to see all in the next episode. I Love you by