Barry, David Thomas (1870–1955), physiologist, was born in Ballyannahan, Co. Cork, eldest son of Thomas Barry. Educated in Cork, he graduated MB (RUI) in 1894, entered general practice in England, won a fellowship, and studied in London, Berlin, and Heidelberg. In 1907 he became an FRCS and first professor of physiology at QCC, developing new laboratories, equipment, and departmental facilities; but in the 1920s was disappointed when the Rockefeller Foundation refused funding. A gifted teacher, he published his pioneering research in electrocardiography and cardiac perfusion, and on other medical topics, in Irish and international journals. For research in France he was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (1929); he was also an honorary D.Sc. (NUI). He retired in 1942 and died in London 15 April 1955. He married (1908) Yvonne Boiret of Paris; they had a daughter, who died in childhood, and two sons, one of whom was named Claude Bernard to honour the great French physiologist.
Sources
WWW; R. O'Rahilly, Benjamin Alcock . . . (1948), 32–3; id., A history of the Cork Medical School 1848–1949 (1949), 43–5; Joseph Reilly, obit., Nature, clxxv (21 May 1955), 879–80; R. H. O. B. Robinson and W. R. Le Fanu, Lives of the fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 1952–64 (1970)