THIS year is the 190th anniversary of Dr Barry’s emergency Caesarean section performed in Wynberg on Wilhelmina Munnik. Although it was not the first successful example of this revolutionary operation, it was a first in the English-speaking world, and the first performed by a woman.
The legends around Dr James Barry are not unknown in Cape Town, including the duel with Captain Josias Cloete at Alphen, and the intimate relationship with Governor Charles Somerset. But they were all to some degree just stories as many aspects of Dr Barry’s life were obviously concealed, and her career played itself out in various isolated parts of the British Empire.
But that has all changed with the publication of Michael du Preez – a Capetonian – and Jeremy Dronfield’s masterpiece Dr James Barry, A Woman Ahead of Her Time? The research has been incredible. The prose divine. A worthy memorial to a brilliant woman who successfully concealed her sex for over 50 years in the British army while revolutionising medical practice.
Her pioneering Caesarean section was a first step in liberating women from the dangers of childbirth. Her obsession with cleanliness anticipated the discovery of germs and their role in infection. While Florence Nightingale got much of the glory, Dr Barry did the heavy lifting to push back medical ignorance. I bought my copy overseas, but recently noticed it in a Cape Town bookshop. For history that is stranger than fiction, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
James Cunningham
Camps Bay