A Lady Surgeon in the Army, Abbeville Press (Article, 1876)
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A Lady Surgeon in the Army
There was at this time at the cape a person whose eccentricities attracted universal attention--Dr. James Barry, staff surgeon to the garrison and the governor's medical adviser. Lord Charles described him to me as the most skillful of physicians and the most wayward of men. He had lately been in professional attendance upon the governor, who was somewhat fanciful about his health, but, taking umbrage at something said or done, he had left his patient to prescribe for himself. I had heard so much of this capricious, yet privileged gentleman, that I had a great curiosity to see him. I shortly afterward sat next him at dinner at one of the regimental messes. In this learned Pundit I held a beardless lad, apparently about my own age, with an unmistakable Scotch type of countenance, reddish hair, high cheek bones. There was a certain effeminacy in his manner, which he always seemed striving to overcome. His style of conversation was greatly superior to that one usually heard at mess tables in those days of non-competitive examination. A mystery attached to Barry's whole professional career, which extended over more than half a century. While at the cape he fought a duel, and was considered to be a most quarrelsome disposition. He was frequently guilty of most flagrant breaches of discipline, and on more than one occasion was sent home under arrest, but somehow or other his offenses were always condoned at headquarters. In Hart's "Annual Army List" for the year 1865 the name of James Barry, M.D., stands at the head of the list of inspectors general of hospitals. In the July of that same year the Times one day announced the death of Dr. Barry, and the next day it was officially reported to the Horse Guards that the doctor was a woman. It is singular that neither the landlady of her lodging nor the black servant who had lived with her for years had the slightest suspicion of her sex. The late Mrs. Ward, daughter of Colonel Tidy, from whom I had these particulars, told me further that she believed the doctor to have been the granddaughter of a Scotch earl, whose name I do not now give, as I am unable to substantiate the correctness of my friend's surmise, and that she adopted the medical profession from attachment to an army surgeon, who has not been many years dead.
