Dr. James Barry was the first woman in England to go to medical school. When she was grow-ing up, women could not go to medical school. (77) So how did she become a doctor? She simply pretended that she was a man. 

No one knows Dr. Barry' s real name, her birth date, of her family' s background. Some re-cords show that she was born in 1795 in London. Some people say she was the daughter of a rich man or a royal prince. One fact we know is that in 1810, James Barry became a medical student at the University of Edinburgh. 

James Barry' s classmates made fun of her because she didn' t have a beard and she was only five feet tall. But no one thought she was a girl. At the age of 20, James Barry graduated from the University of Edinburgh as a Doctor of Medicine. She was one of the youngest students to complete her studies. Dr. Barry then went to work in a London hospital and studied surgery. A year later,she entered the army and became a hospital assistant. We will never know how she avoided the ar-my physical examination. 

For the next 45 years, Dr. James Barry was a British officer and a successful surgeon. Every-one admired her. She began to do a lot of important work for the army. ( 78 ) At that time, Eng-land had many colonies around the world. Dr. Barry spent a lot of time in foreign countries. She travelled to India, Corfu, Malta, and Jamaica. In 1856 she went to South Africa, and she was sooL known as the best doctor and surgeon in the colony. She saved the life of the governor' s daughter, and later she became the governor' s personal doctor. People admired Dr. Barry, but she also had a reputation as a troublemaker. If people talked about her high voice or tiny figure, she became very angry. She was an excellent swordsman, and she started fights often.