Cyril Barnett was born on 30 October 1919, in North Hackney, London, to Barnett Barnett, a traveller in chemistry, and Rosa (née Freedman) his wife. He was educated at Selhurst Grammar School, Croydon and entered St Catharine's College, Cambridge in October 1938, where in his second year he was a

Jacob Zimmerman qualified from St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1943. He was a foundation member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Science and an Hunterian Professor of our College in 1966. He was an assistant Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the New York Medica