Doctor in disguise: the amazing life of Margaret Bulkley

When the celebrated surgeon of the British Empire Dr James Barry died in London in 1865, the secret he had been carrying for more than 50 years was finally exposed.

A charwoman called upon to wash and lay out the corpse was amazed to discover the thin and dilapidated body of a woman with distinctive striations on the belly, which she recognised from personal experience as the marks of childbearing. Barry had gone ...