Tale of a pioneering doctor and Kandyan prisoners
View(s):The doctor who performed the first CS in South Africa in 1826 was James Barry. Raja Bandaranayake, author of ‘The Betwixt Isles’ states that Barry a graduate of Edinburgh followed post-graduate studies at Guy’s and at St. Thomas’ under the famous surgeon Sir Astley Cooper, a name familiar to all students of Anatomy.
Dr James Barry. Photograph: Oneworld Publications
As a 26-year- old doctor he went to Cape Town. Soon he befriended Lord Charles Somerset, the Governor of the Cape. Following a scandalous relationship with Somerset he set sail to Mauritius where he worked as the Principal Medical Officer at the same time when the exiled Kandyan prisoners were held in Pamplemousses.
Barry arrived in Mauritius at the height of a cholera epidemic during which Talagune, one of the Kandyan prisoners, died. Barry attended on Ihagama, former monk and a fellow Kandyan prisoner. But the most noteworthy duty that Barry took over was attending on the ailing Maha Nilame Ahelapola. Barry often spent the greater part of the day with the Maha Nilame and once he stayed overnight looking after his patient.
The first CS in the Cape area was performed on July 25, 1826 by James Barry on a wealthy woman who was in labour for over a week. Barry had never done a CS before, even in England nor had he seen one being performed but he faced the challenge and brought forth a live baby boy. The mother lived to her late 70s and bore six or seven more children. The father of the baby was Thomas Frederick Munnik, a wealthy snuff manufacturer. The baby was named after Barry – James Barry Munich.
The baby grew into a fine young man who inherited his father’s business. The family continued the tradition of naming the first born after Barry up to the present time. This way Barry’s name was inherited by one of the icons of the apartheid regime – General J.B.M.Hertzog, Prime Minister of the First Afrikaner Nationalist Government of the Apartheid State. The initials J. B. M. stand for James Barry Munnik. Dr. James Barry died on the 25th July 1865 in London.
At the ‘laying’ of his body it was discovered that James Barry had been a woman with skin marks implying that ‘he’ had even given birth to a baby. He most certainly masqueraded as a male to enter Edinburgh Medical School at a time when women were not admitted. Maha Nilame Ahelapola becomes the first Kandyan chief to be treated by one of the first Edinburgh graduates who happened to be a woman in man’s clothes and who also was the first to perform a successful CS in South Africa.