biographies

Barrie, Jean Unita (1923 - )

Dip Applied Chem BSc PhD

Born
25 March 1923
Windsor, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Blood Serologist and Medical Scientist
Summary

Prepared by Ann Westmore PhD, 2006

Jean Unita Barrie spent most of her working life at the Royal Women’s Hospital, contributing to the well-being of countless mothers and babies.

She started as a laboratory assistant in the Biochemistry Section of the hospital’s Pathology Department in the early 1940s, and retired in 1988 as the medical scientist in charge of the Serology Department, which covered all aspects of blood grouping and associated immunology.

Details

Born on 25 March 1923 at Windsor, Victoria, Jean Barrie was the younger of two daughters of bank officer, John Alexander Barrie, and his wife, Elizabeth Bertha, née Wright, an Alfred Hospital-trained nursing sister. She attended the Gardiner Central School, Malvern, followed by the MacRobertson Girls High School, 1936 to 1939. Given the difficult (post-Depression) economic circumstances, she appreciated her secondary education which made her hungry for learning and was a guiding influence throughout her career.

On leaving school, she attended a business college, one of the few avenues then open to young women contemplating a career in the paid workforce. Six months later, her career options broadened unexpectedly when an opportunity arose to join the Women’s Hospital as a laboratory assistant in the Pathology Department under the Biochemist in Charge, Dr Vera Krieger.

Learning the trade
Under Krieger, one of the first women to receive a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Melbourne, young Jean gained invaluable training in basic clinical biochemistry tests and techniques in the emerging field of serology, the study of blood and its component fractions. A little later, in 1942, she was exposed to a research perspective when the Women’s started the first comprehensive testing of mothers and babies in Victoria for Rh blood group incompatibility, and embarked on studies of eclampsia, a serious and long-recognised complication of pregnancy marked by high blood pressure.

While these state-of-the-art scientific investigations went on around her, she was engaged in many mundane tasks such as hand washing equipment and preparing large volumes of solutions using beam balances. She also maintained ward stocks of sterile glucose saline for infusion; waxed and polished wooden workbenches; cleaned sinks; polished taps; and dusted shelves of chemicals.

It was wartime, and everyone pulled together. Krieger trained numerous Army personnel to conduct biochemical tests needed in field hospitals. There were also khaki socks, mittens and balaclavas to knit during lunch hour, and regular Air Raid practices that the hospital conducted without warning. When the alarm sounded, staff promptly set about doing their allocated tasks which, in Jean’s case, included turning off and securing the distilled water apparatus and proceeding to a midwifery ward to help carry babies down the fire escape to the safety of the basement in large laundry baskets.

Intermission and further education
Having decided to gain a further qualification, Jean Barrie left the hospital in 1944 to work at CSIR (later CSIRO) Division of Forest Products. She found herself preventing mould growth on planes flying in New Guinea as well as working on wood chemistry, plywood and adhesives. Each evening or, in the few hours of study leave allowed each week, she attended the Melbourne Technical College (later RMIT University), from which she graduated with a Diploma in Applied Chemistry in 1951.

Equipped with this graduate qualification, she returned to the Women’s Hospital which five years earlier had established its own Blood Transfusion Service (1946). Coincidental with her return, the hospital embarked on exchange transfusions, the only hope of recovery for a significant number of babies who developed haemolytic disease of the newborn as a result of Rh incompatibility. She became a mainstay of this work, attending when emergencies or cross-matching problems occurred during and after working hours.

Devoted to understanding the principles underlying her work, she undertook further part-time studies in microbiology, virology and genetics at the University of Melbourne. By the late 1950s, she was Senior Graduate and Deputy (to Krieger) in Serology, newly formed as a department in its own right. In 1961 she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree assisted by the hospital Board which offered her financial assistance and study leave in her final year on condition that she returned to the Serology Section of the Pathology Department after graduation. She did so without hesitation and was buoyed by the hospital’s support.

When an opportunity arose to undertake PhD studies in immunology in the University of Melbourne’s Microbiology Department in 1962, the Director of Pathology at the hospital, Dr Hans Bettinger, gave his full support along with leave of absence for three years. At the time, Serology was collaborating closely with the hospital’s Professorial Unit on Rhesus (Rh) immunisation projects and, recognising the potential value of her studies, Professor Lance Townsend provided a grant to cover her doctoral expenses. Colleagues say that Barrie flowered at this time, revealing a "wonderful, wicked sense of fun" which was contagious.

During the final years of her PhD studies, she was a Senior Demonstrator in the University’s Microbiology Department and in 1966 she completed her doctoral thesis, titled ‘The Adjuvant Activity of Simple Lipids’. When Krieger retired around that time, she was appointed Scientist in Charge of Serology until her own retirement in 1988.

An emerging field
Over the 22 year period as chief serologist, the core work of serology centred on Rhesus and many rarer red cell blood group investigations, related to incompatibility in pregnancy or transfusion. The work was both a routine part of patient care and a source of many research questions. Tests for white cell antibodies, infertility and venereal disease were also performed in Serology until their transfer to the core work of other sections of the hospital. Thus for example, infertility studies moved to the new Andrology Laboratory during the 1960s.

In the early 1970s, the hospital introduced a 24 hour blood transfusion service, a major expansion that Serology supervised conscientiously. With the introduction of this service trained staff members were on hand overnight should emergencies occur with consequent savings in time and money and a more timely emergency response, compared with the former on-call system. The establishment of the service also meant that facilities for local volunteers to donate blood existed on the hospital site. "On average we were able to recruit enough new local donors to cover the demand for blood within the hospital and sometimes even swell supplies for the Red Cross Blood Bank," she recalled.

In 1976, at the 5th International Convocation on Immunology in the US, she heard presentations by pioneers of blood group serology. It was one of many highlights in a long and illustrious career that saw serology develop into a vibrant field of study, with major improvements to the safety and effectiveness of transfused blood and blood fractions, as well as in the care of transfusion recipients.


Sources:

Personal communication, Jean Barrie, Denys Fortune and Elaine Batchelder to Ann Westmore;

RWH Bulletin, 2, 1, Feb 1968.

Published Resources

Journal Articles

  • , vol. 2, no. 1, Royal Women's Hospital, Carlton, February 1968. [ Details... ]
  • Anon, 'Doctorate Conferred', Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 1, Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, 1968, p. 3. [ Details... ]

Prepared by: Robyn Waymouth

Created: 10 November 2006, Last modified: 25 November 2006