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
It’s really important to know that trespassing and vagrancy laws in the US were more or less made up entirely for this purpose. Until we hit on the idea of rent-a-prisoners as replacements for slave labor, it wasn’t illegal to just hang out in public not doing anything, or wander through someone’s yard on your way somewhere else, or to camp on public land.
The very first known enslaved black person in the US was an indentured immigrant named John Punch. We know his name. Indentured labor at the time was either a financial arrangement people either entered into willingly or was a sentence for a crime. Punch and two white men were laborers who attempted to flee their service and were caught. The two white dudes had their sentence extended by one year. Punch was sentenced to a life of servitude.
It started with prison and it’s come back to prison. It’s still prison. This is still happening. It’s not over.
If this picture doesn’t make you want to vomit I don’t know what to do with you.
I love that one of the restrictions on name changes in the UK is that your name cannot “promote criminal activities” and fucking hell every name I can think of that violates that is just stellar honestly like fucking hello nice to meet you my name is Commit Arson, I’d like you to meet my daughter Dont Pay Taxes and my son Steal From Work
this is my son, rob
okay so name CHANGES can’t promote criminal activities, but original birth names only have to be a sequence of letters and “should not be offensive”. so like
you can probably name your kid Commit Arson and totally should since they can’t change their name to that as an adult this is the only chance
on the surface level it’s obvious the oscars are only adding the best popular film category to take advantage of the hype of like avengers and star wars movies, etc which will in turn make more people tune into the awards but its like…What Else? bc it also just seems like another way to give movies a consolation prize that isn’t best picture. like, for example, looking at Get Out. that was /technically/ a “popular film” bc it made A Lot of money and was talked about like ALL of last year, but it was Still a good movie worthy of best picture. Like would that Not be allowed to be included in the best picture category anymore bc people went out and watched it or ???
It’s so suspicious that they’re doing it right before Black Panther is supposed to be up for a bunch of awards too like they ain’t slick
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