Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/143

 off revolution from England, and in softening the bitter spirit between rich and poor.



COOPER, ASTLEY PASTON (1768–1841), surgeon, was fourth son of the Rev., D.D., curate of Great Yarmouth, and rector of Morley and Yelverton, Norfolk (B.A. of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1760, M.A. 1763, D.D. 1777), author of a poem called ‘The Task,’ published soon after Cowper's famous ‘Task,’ upon which Dr. Parr made the epigram:

Samuel Cooper published a large number of sermons, wrote com ments on Priestley's letters to Burke on civil and ecclesiastical government (1791), and died at Great Yarmouth on 7 Jan. 1800, aged 61 (Gent. Mag. 1800, i. 89, 177).

Mrs. Cooper, a Miss Bransby, wrote story-books for children and novels of the epistolary kind. Their eldest son, Bransby, was M.P. for Gloucester for twelve years, from 1818 to 1830.

Cooper was born on 23 Aug. 1768, at Brooke Hall, about seven miles from Norwich. He was a lively scapegrace youth, and learnt little, being educated at home. His grandfather, Samuel Cooper, was a surgeon of good repute at Norwich, and his uncle, William Cooper, surgeon to Guy's Hospital. He was apprenticed in 1784 to his uncle, but soon transferred to [q. v.], surgeon to St. Thomas's, who exercised very great influence over him. He spent one winter (1787–8) at the Edinburgh Medical School, under Gregory, Cullen, Black, and Fyfe. Both before and after his return to London he attended John Hunter's lectures. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at St. Thomas's in 1789, being only twenty-one years old. Two years later Cline made him joint lecturer with himself in anatomy and surgery. In December 1791 he married Miss Anne Cock, who brought him a considerable fortune. The summer of 1792 was spent in Paris, security being obtained through friends of Cline, whose democratic principles Cooper warmly espoused.

On his return from Paris, Cooper devoted himself largely to study and teaching, and succeeded in developing the subject of surgery into a separate course of lectures from anatomy. At first too theoretical to please, he soon found that his strength lay in discussing his own cases, with all the illustration that he could supply from memory of other cases. He thus became a most interesting practical lecturer, and meddled little with theory. In 1793 he was selected to lecture on anatomy at the College of Surgeons, which office he held till 1796 with great success. In 1797 he removed from Jeffreys Square to 12 St. Mary Axe, formerly Mr. Cline's house.

In 1800 Cooper was appointed surgeon to Guy's on the resignation of his uncle, but not before he had abjured his democratic principles. From this time forward, while he gave much of his time to the hospital and medical school, his private practice rapidly increased until it became perhaps the largest any surgeon has ever had. In 1802 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, being awarded the Copleian medal for his papers on the ‘Membrana Tympani of the Ear.’ He continued an indefatigable dissector, rising very early. All kinds of specimens of morbid anatomy which could illustrate surgery were brought to him, and he was also resolute in making post-mortem examinations wherever possible. He was often in contact with the resurrectionists of the period, and many interesting anecdotes of this part of his career are given in his ‘Life.’ He himself stated before a committee of the House of Commons: ‘There is no person, let his situation in life be what it may, whom, if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain. The law only enhances the price, and does not prevent the exhumation.’

In 1805 Cooper took an important part in founding the Medico-Chirurgical Society, being its first treasurer. Its early volumes of ‘Transactions’ contain several papers by him. He now published his important work on ‘Hernia,’ part 1 in 1804, part 2 in 1807, the illustrations to which were so expensive that Cooper was a loser of a thousand pounds when every copy had been sold. In 1806 he left St. Mary Axe for New Broad Street, spending here the nine most remunerative years of his life. In one year his income was 21,000l. His largest fee, a thousand guineas, was tossed to him by Hyatt, a rich West Indian planter, in his nightcap, after a successful operation for stone.

In 1813 Cooper was appointed professor of comparative anatomy by the Royal College of Surgeons, and lectured during 1814 and 1815. In the latter year he moved to New Street, Spring Gardens, and in the following May performed his celebrated operation of tying the aorta for aneurysm. In 1820, having for some years attended Lord Liverpool, he was called in to George IV, and afterwards