The doctor's secret
Dr James Barry carried out the first successful Caesarean section and blazed a trail as the highest-ranking medical officer in the British Army. But, writes Breege Brennan, when the doctor died, his true identity was exposed -- 'he' was really a woman from Cork

By Breege Brennan
Saturday June 04 2011

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/the-doctors-secret-2666225.html

He was one of the most respected and powerful men in the British Army but, when he died, he turned out to be a woman from Cork.

A report with the startling facts leaked out in July 1865 after the death of Dr James Barry, Inspector General of Hospitals -- the highest medical rank in the British Army. It emerged that he was a woman and possibly even a mother.