[ 346 ] 



LII. Note on the Penetration of the Spermatozoon into the Inte- 

 rior of the Ovum. By Martin Barry, M.D., F.R.S* 



THE fact that the spermatozoon penetrates into the interior 

 of the ovum was published by myself in the Philosophical 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of London for 1840. Further 

 observations enabled me to record the same as established, in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for 1843. And in the Edinburgh 

 New Philosophical Journal for October 1843, will be found a 

 drawing I gave of an ovum of the Rabbit containing spermatozoa 

 — nine in number, with the statement that I once counted more 

 than twenty in an ovum of this animal. 



These observations were held by physiologists to have been a 

 mistake, an opinion which lasted up to the year 185.2, when 

 Nelson confirmed them in ova of an Entozoon, Keber in ova of 

 the freshwater Mussels Unio and Anodonta, and Newport in ova 

 of the Frog. And the present note contains, I believe, the first 

 announcement in this country of their having been confirmed in 

 the ]\Iammalia themselves. I have just received a letter from a 

 friend in Germany informing me of a paper published by Prof. 

 Bischofi", dated March 15, 1854t, in which it is stated that 

 spemiatozoa have at length been seen within the zona, not only 

 by R. Wagner, Henle, Baum, and Meissner, but even by Bischoff 

 himself, who up to 1852 had considered my observations as 

 " born of the imagination," but now candidly acknowledges that 

 he had done me injustice, the mistake having been his own. 

 And he remarks, that " Barry was certainly the first to see sper- 

 matozoa in the interior, not only of the mammiferous ovum, but of 

 any ova." Professor Bischofi" might have added, that for a dozen 

 years Barry had a melancholy and not very enviable monopoly 

 of the said observations. And it may now be mentioned that in 

 this respect they resembled certain others, for confii'mation of 

 which I have always felt that I could aff'ord to "bide my time." 

 Thus I have at length received notice from a physiologist on the 

 Continent of a work he is about to publish, containing a confir- 

 mation of my fact announced in Miiller's Archiv for 1850, that 

 cilia are composed of spirals. 



* Communicated by the Author. 



t Entitled, " Bestatigung des von Dr. Newport bei den Batrachiern und 

 Dr. Barry bei den Kaninchen behaupteten Eindringens der Spermatozoiden 

 in das Ei." 



