Barry, Martin

(b. Fratton, Hampshire, England, 28 March 1802; d. Beccles, Suffolk, England, 27 April 1855)

embryology, histology.

Barry was trained for a career in his father’s Nova Scotia-based mercantile concern, which sent ships to various parts of North America and the West Indies. After a short time in business, Barry began medical studies to prepare himself for work in science. Before receiving the M.D. at Edinburgh in 1833 he studied medicine at London, Paris, Erlangen, and Berlin. After graduation he specialized in anatomy and physiology for about a year under Friedrich Tiedemann at Heidelberg. On his return to Edinburgh, Barry attended the Royal Infirmary to further his medical knowledge.

Since he had a private income, Barry never had to practice medicine and did not hold any permanent appointment. As a result, he was able to divide his residency between Scotland, England, and Germany. In 1843 he presented a course of physiological lectures at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London. The following year Barry became house surgeon at the new Royal Maternity Hospital, Edinburgh, and made observations on the position of the fetus both before and during delivery. These observations were noted by Sir James Young Simpson in various papers. Barry had a partiality for his obstetric work, of which Simpson spoke highly, but he soon had to resign this position because of recurring ill health.

Barry received the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in 1839 for his 1838 and 1839 papers on embryology, and the following year was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Other societies in which he was active were the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Wernerian Society.

In 1835 Barry began to study the embryological literature, having been led into microscopical researches by an embryological work given to him by Robert Jameson. This was soon after K. E. von Baer and his fellow workers in Germany had stimulated the study of embryology. His interest in embryology led him into general histological studies at about the time that the cell theory was being formulated. The bulk of microscopic research was then being published in German, and Barry was one of few British scientists interested in and conversant with the German microscopic literature of the 1830’s and 1840’s.

Barry’s first embryological paper was “On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom,” in which he started from the assumption that all of nature is part of the same grand design. Barry recognized that the germ cells of several species of animals were essentially the same and that there is a general law directing the development of animal structure from a homogeneous or general state to a heterogeneous or special one. He adapted his description of the general development of animals from Baer, on whom he relied quite heavily.

In 1837 Barry was in Germany again, this time using the facilities of Johannes Müller, C. G. Ehrenberg, Rudolph Wagner, and Theodor Schwann. After his return to England he presented his results to the Royal Society as “Researches in Embryology” (1838–1840). In this three-part series Barry tried to follow the history of the mammalian ovum from its first appearance within the ovary through its early stages of development. His numerous observations (mostly on rabbits) resulted in a series of descriptions and illustrations (drawn by himself) that give a good account of that development.

Barry made two notable embryological observations: the segmentation of the yolk in the fertilized mammalian ovum and the penetration of the spermatozoon into the mammalian ovum. In 1839 he pictured the two-, four-, eight-, and sixteen-cell stages in mammals and described as similar to a mulberry that stage which Ernst Haeckel later named the morula. Barry concluded that the process he described in the mammal was similar to that already recognized in fishes and batrachians, thus strengthening his belief in the unity of the animal world.

In 1839 Barry avoided discussing the problem of whether contact of the seminal fluid with the ovum was necessary for impregnation. He did mention, however, that in some instances he had found spermatozoa on the surface of the ovary. The following year Barry reported that he had seen a spermatozoon within the zona pellucida with its head directed toward the interior of the ovum. Barry read a note to the Royal Society on 8 December 1842 in which he announced that he had recently seen spermatozoa within the ova of a rabbit. As far as he knew, this was an original observation. He showed one or more of these ova to Richard Owen, William Sharpey, and Richard Grainger, all of whom, he said, agreed that the spermatozoa were within the ova. Theodor Bischoff refused to believe that Barry had seen spermatozoa within ova, and Barry answered him in 1844, pointing out Bischoff’s errors in obtaining and preserving ova. Only in 1851 did Alfred Nelson confirm Barry’s observations; further proof came from George Newport and Georg Meissner, and finally from Bischoff himself.

Barry presented a second series of papers, “On the Corpuscles of the Blood,” to the Royal Society in 1840–1841, and concluded it in a fourth part, “On Fibre,” in 1842. A later, expanded version of the 1842 paper was translated into German by J. E. Purkinje, with whom Barry had been living, and was published in Müller’s Archiv (1850). The histological work in these papers was an outgrowth of Barry’s embryological studies, being prompted particularly by the appearance of the rabbit’s generative organs when they were in a highly vascular condition. Barry was interested in the origin of the red blood corpuscles and the changes they undergo. The basic idea in his hypothesis of red corpuscle formation was that the nucleus of a parent cell somehow broke into several “discs,” all but two of which eventually disappeared. A cell then formed around each of these two “discs,” and when the new cells were complete with their own membranes, the membrane of the parent cell disappeared, leaving two new cells. Barry based these ideas on the observations he had made on the fertilized ovum and its development to the morula stage, during which time there is no appreciable increase in the total organic mass.

Barry thoughst that all of the animal structures which he had studied arose from red blood corpuscles, or corpuscles very similar to them. The bulk of his four-part series of papers was devoted to his observations on many types of tissues and his arguments that they had all arisen in the same manner from the same basic elements, thus developing further his ideas about the unity of all animal life. He also thought that a knowledge of the formation of various tissues might lead to an understanding of the role of the blood corpuscles in nutrition. In a later paper he tried to show that John Goodsir’s work in nutrition supported his ideas.

The greatest portion of Barry’s later work was aimed at promoting his conclusions on the origin of blood corpuscles and the formation of animal tissues from them. Often he was overly concerned with his own priority and tried to show that other workers had merely confirmed his theories, even when there were scant grounds for such a claim.

Barry’s contemporaries generally thought highly of, and accepted, his observations and the illustrations accompanying his papers. His conclusions, however, were often considered highly speculative and were sometimes assailed. In addition to a number of valuable observations, Barry should also be credited with stimulating microscopic studies in Great Britain and increasing his countrymen’s acquaintance with the German literature in his field.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Barry’s first embryological paper was “On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom,” in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), 116–141, 345–364. His main embryological results are in “Researches in Embryology. First [Second and Third] Series,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 128 (1838), 301–341; 129 (1839), 307–380; 130 (1840), 529–593; and in a short note, “Spermatozoa Observed Within the Mammiferous Ovum,” ibid., 133 (1843), 33. The important histological papers are the series “On the Corpuscles of the Blood,” ibid., 130 (1840), 595–612; 131 (1841), 201–216, 217–268; and the continuation “On Fibre,” ibid., 132 (1842), 89–135. Many of these observations and conclusions, with some new material, were summarized in a paper read before the Wernerian Society, “On the Nucleus of the Animal and Vegetable ‘Cell,’” in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 43 (Apr.-Oct. 1847). 201–229. The 1842 paper, “On Fibre,” was expanded, translated into German by J. E. Purkinje, and published as “Neue Untersuchungen über die schraubenförmige Beschaffenheit der Elementarfasern der Muskeln, nebst Beobachtungen über die muskulöse Natur der Flimmerhärchen,” in Müler’s Archiv (1850), 529–596. See the Royal Society’s Catalogue of Scientific Papers, 1st ser., I, 194–195, for Barry’s other papers, most of which treat the same material.

II. Secondary Literature. The most complete account of Barry’s life and work is in the Edinburgh MedicalJournal, 1 (1856), 81–91. This consists of a memoir of Barry by J. B., pp. 81–87, and a letter to the editor by Allen Thomson, pp. 87–91. Thomson knew Barry and his scientific endeavors, having at times worked with him, and he gives a short comment on Barry’s achievements.

Wesley C. Williams