Dr James Barry, the first doctor to perform a successful C section wherein both mother and child survived, was a huge champion of handwashing at a time when most doctors didn’t wash their hands. For this reason, many of the chilldbirths he delivered resulted in healthier babies and mothers. He was also a gay trans man, who specifically wrote that upon his death he wished for his body to be taken in its nightshirt, wrapped in his sheets as a shroud, and placed into the coffin so that nobody would see his body. His wishes were not respected, and as a result he was outed at his death.
i’ve also been informed he had a poodle. He named his poodle Psyche. I’d just like to congratulate him on being an excellent human being, who not only pioneered modern medicine but also had good taste in dogs. that is all.
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i thought this was fake but it’s not
here’s the sawbones episode about him
cis people
He was also reportedly quite the ladies’ man, and he’d apparently carried a child to term and gave birth.
he’s one of my favorite historical figures and ive read a lot on him including the biography Scanty Particulars by Rachel Holmes. a lot of the details of his life are difficult to figure out, partly cause he was very private and partly cause he had so many rumors surrounding him. here are some of my fave facts about him:
-he was very concerned with protecting poor people, women and people of color, aka all the people most of upper class british society at the time cared the least about. he worked to reform prisons and hospitals in south africa at risk to his own career, and also improved the conditions under which poor enlisted british soldiers and their families lived
-he was kind of a known hothead. he was rumored to have fought at least one duel (probably not true though). florence nightingale hated him even though they had similar ideas about medicine because they had such a clash of personalities in the brief time they worked together
-he was a vegetarian and took a goat with him on sea voyages so he could always have fresh milk
-even though he had an abrasive personality and made a lot of enemies, his patients, especially the women, really loved him because they felt like he knew what he was doing and actually cared about their health
-he died poor because the british army ripped him off >:/
edit i almost forgot the best thing. he didn’t just have one poodle named psyche. he had a bunch. when one died he would get a new poodle and name that one psyche too
Fun story: One of the first things I was taught as an astronomy student is that, if you want to be a dick to someone giving a presentation, ask them “and how do the magnetic fields play into this?” and they will invariably say “fuck you I don’t know” because no one understands magnetic fields they are black magic.
Pure utter bullshit. Electromagnetic forces somehow outstrip gravitic forces in strength by an obscene factor, for no reason I can comprehend and it bothers me.
I love magnets
One, that gif showing the Curie temperature is really cool.
Two, you don’t understand, magnetic fields are the bane of my existance and I have a masters dissertation about them. I studied how magnetic fields develop in low mass stars and every single meeting with my supervisor ended in some conversation about how stupid magnetism is.
“Oh yeah and this is effected by the magnetic field strength…”
“But why?”
“God knows, I don’t have a clue.”
Was literally said to me by a professor who has spent 20 years of his life looking at magnetism in stars.
ALSO:
“Don’t ask why, we don’t know. Maybe magnetism? Who knows anything about magnetism.” – My Stellar Physics professor when asked about certain processes in stellar formation, something he has been studying for 10 years.
Like we know so little about that it’s actually funny.
amusedAnarchist 