Barrett was born July 15, 1871, in Austin, Illinois, the son of a Methodist minister.

Following graduation, from 1895 to 1897 he served as pathologist and assistant physician at the Iowa State Hospital for the Insane in Independence.

According to Meyer, Barrett was interested in learning how to conduct autopsies and to study the human brain.

In 1897, Barrett moved to the State Mental Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts as an assistant physician.

[2] In 1901-1902, Barrett studied at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, working with Franz Nissl, Alois Alzheimer, and Emil Kraepelin.

The new State Psychopathic Hospital was to provide care of patients, and for the study and research in neuropathology of mental illness.

The Michigan state legislature authorized the facility in 1905, and it was opened in 1906 with Barrett as the director.

Barrett saw his model of a psychopathic hospital as a supplement to the existing system of state hospitals for the insane, and believed that a system of mental health centers affiliated with local hospitals would be more effective than the existing, highly centralized, arrangements in each state; it would allow for cooperation with local courts and welfare agencies, and would let patients remain close to home whenever possible.

In 1936, he was elected President of the American Neurological Association, but he died shortly before assuming the office.

“A Study of Mental Diseases Associated with Cerebral Arteriosclerosis,” American Journal of Psychiatry 62(1) (1905): 37, 62-65.

“A Study of Certain Types of Mental Disorders and Peculiar Cerebral Lesions Observed in Cases of Pernicious Anemia,” The Physician and Surgeon 35 (1913): 356-358.

The Trade in Lunacy: A Study of Private Madhouses in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.