Cooper, SIR ASTLEY

Cooper, SIR ASTLEY, surgeon, was born, a clergyman's son, at Brooke Hall, Norfolk, 23d August 1768. In his seventeenth year he went to London, and became a pupil of Mr Cline, one of the most noted surgeons of his day. He devoted himself with ardour to his profession, and was a constant attender at the dissecting-rooms, and also at the lectures of the famous John Hunter. In 1789 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital; and two years after he assisted in the lectures on anatomy and surgery. In 1793 he was appointed lecturer on anatomy at the College of Surgeons, in 1800 surgeon to Guy's Hospital; and in 1813 professor of Comparative Anatomy in the College of Surgeons. Meanwhile, Cooper had been enriching medical literature by various contributions. An essay on the effects resulting from the destruction of the membrana tympani gained him, in 1802, the Copley medal of the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow three years afterwards. In 1804-7 appeared his great work on Hernia, with life-size illustrations, a contribution of the utmost value to medical science, though in a pecuniary point of view it proved very unprofitable to himself. The practical part of his profession was not neglected during this time. He was the first to attempt the tying of the carotid artery, an attempt which, though unsuccessful in his hands, has since proved effectual in the hands of other practitioners. His annual income, which in the fifth year of his practice only amounted to £100, had in 1813 risen to the enormous sum of £21,000. In 1817 he tried what has been considered the boldest experiment ever attempted in surgery, the tying of the aorta, which did not prove successful. In 1820 Cooper removed a tumour from the head of George IV., who conferred a baronetcy upon him some six months after. In 1827 he was elected President of the College of Surgeons, in 1828 became sergeant-surgeon to the king, and in 1830 was made vice-president of the Royal Society. Other honours flowed in upon him. He was made a member of the French Institute, and corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, a D.C.L. of Oxford, and an LL.D. of Edinburgh. Ever busy with his pen as with his knife, he in 1822 published a great work on Dislocations and Fractures. His treatise on the Anatomy and Diseases of the Breast (1829-40) was characterised by all the care, research, and originality which distinguished his previous works; so likewise was his Anatomy of the Thymus Gland (1832). Cooper died 12th February 1841, and was buried in the chapel of Guy's Hospital. A colossal statue to his memory is erected in St Paul's Cathedral, London. As a teacher, Cooper possessed the faculty of communicating knowledge in a manner at once easy and agreeable; and he elevated medical surgery, the operations of which before his time had been described as a series of 'frightful alternatives, or hazardous compromises,' into a science. See his Life (2 vols. 1843).