Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1st Baronet (
23 August 1768 –
12 February 1841) was an
English surgeon and
anatomist, who made historical contributions to
otology,
vascular surgery, the
anatomy and
pathology of the
mammary glands and
testicles, and the pathology and surgery of
hernia.
Life
Cooper was born at the village of
Brooke in
Norfolk on
23 August 1768. His father, Dr. Samuel Cooper, was a
clergyman of the
Church of England; his mother was the author of several novels. At the age of sixteen he was sent to
London and placed under
Henry Cline (1750-1827), surgeon to
St. Thomas' Hospital. From the first he devoted himself to the study of
anatomy, and had the privilege of attending the lectures of
John Hunter. In 1789 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital, where in 1791 he became joint lecturer with Cline in anatomy and
surgery, and in 1800 he was appointed surgeon to
Guy's Hospital on the death of his uncle, William Cooper.
In 1802 he received the
Copley Medal for two papers read before the
Royal Society of London on the destruction of the
tympanic membrane; and in 1805 he was elected a Fellow of that society. In the same year he took an active part in the formation of the
Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, and in 1804 he brought out the first, and in 1807 the second, part of his great work on
hernia, which added so largely to his reputation that in 1813 his annual professional income rose to 21,000 pounds sterling. In the same year he was appointed professor of
comparative anatomy to the
Royal College of Surgeons and was very popular as a lecturer.
In 1817 he performed his famous operation of tying the abdominal aorta for aneurism; and in 1820 he removed an infected
sebaceous cyst from the head of
King George IV. About six months afterwards received a
baronetcy, which, as he had no son, was to descend to his nephew and adopted son, Astley Cooper. He was subsequently appointed sergeant surgeon to King George IV,
King William IV and
Queen Victoria. He served as president of the
Royal College of Surgeons in 1827 and again in 1836, and he was elected a vice-president of the
Royal Society in 1830. In 1821, he was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died on
12 February 1841 in London, and was interred, by his own desire, beneath the chapel of Guy's Hospital. A statue by
Edward Hodges Baily was erected in
St Paul's Cathedral.
Cooper lived at Gadebridge House in the market town of
Hemel Hempstead. Due to his influence, among others who were also residents of the area, his vigorous lobbying ensured that the London to Birmingham main railway line was constructed to the south of the town instead of through it, a more natural course. This led to the citizens of Hemel Hempstead having no railway station in their town, instead being obliged to use the one situated at
Boxmoor.
Today, Cooper is remembered in the area with a number of local street names (Astley Road and Paston Road in Hemel Hempstead), and The
Astley Cooper School, formerly Grovehill school, being renamed after him in 1984. The grounds of his former home are now a public park.
Works
Sir Astley's greatest contribution has probably been in the field of
vascular surgery, particularly on
cerebral circulation. He was the first to demonstrate experimentally the effects of bilateral
ligation of the carotid arteries in
dogs and to propose treatment of
aneurysms by ligation of the vessel. In 1805 he published in the first volume of
Medico-Chirurgical Transactions his attempt to tie the common
carotid artery for treating an aneurysm in a patient. In 1808 he tried the same with the external
iliac artery for a femoral aneurysm and in 1817 he ligated the
aorta for an iliac aneurysm.
Cooper was an indefatigable and original anatomist and described several new anatomical structures, many of which were named after him:
He also described a number of new diseases, which likewise became eponymous:
His chief published works were:
- Anatomy and Surgical Treatment of Hernia (1804-1807);
- Dislocations and Fractures (1822);
- Lectures on Surgery (1824-1827);
- Illustrations of Diseases of the Breast (1829);
- Anatomy of the Thymus Gland (1832);
- Anatomy of the Breast (1840).
