COOPER, Sir Astley, Bart., the celebrated surgeon, was the fourth son of the Rev. Dr Cooper, and was born at the village of Brooke, in Norfolk, Aug. 23, 1768. It is said that in early youth he was less distinguished for any precocity of intellect or love of study than for his vivacity and good humour. In his choice of surgery as a profession he seems to have received a bias from a circumstance that could scarcely fail to make a considerable impression on his youthful mind. One day he found a boy with his thigh severely lacerated by a cart-wheel, which had laid open the femoral artery, so that he was in danger of bleeding to death. With much presence of mind, young Astley Cooper bound his handkerchief tightly around the upper part of the thigh, and thus succeeded in arresting the circulation in the vessel until professional assistance could be procured.
In August 1784 he was sent to London and placed under Mr Cline, surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, one of the most celebrated surgeons of the time. As he became early impressed with the necessity of a correct knowledge of anatomy, he assiduously attended the dissecting rooms, and seems to have profited largely from the lectures of the celebrated John Hunter. In 1787 he visited Edinburgh; and on his return was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital. In 1791 he was permitted to deliver part of the course of lectures on anatomy and surgery then given by Mr Cline. This year he married; and in the spring of 1792 visited Paris. The outbreak of the revolution on the 10th August obliged him to return to London, when he delivered a course of lectures on surgery distinct from the course of anatomy, with which it was then generally associated. He was also this year appointed professor of anatomy to Surgeons' Hall; a situation which he again filled in 1794 and 1795. In 1800 he was appointed surgeon to Guy's Hospital, on the death of his uncle William Cooper. Two years previously he had published a volume of papers entitled "Medical Records and Researches;" and in 1802 he received the award of the Copley medal for two papers read before the Royal Society of London on the effects resulting from the destruction of the membrana tympani. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1805. Having taken an active part in the formation of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, he published in the first volume of its Transactions an account of an unsuccessful attempt to tie the carotid artery. In 1804 he brought out the first, and in 1807 the second, part of his great work on Hernia; the operation for which, on account of the defective knowledge of the local anatomy, was then frequently unsuccessful. So greatly did this work add to his reputation, that in 1813 his annual professional income rose to £21,000 sterling. He was soon after appointed professor of Comparative Anatomy to the Royal College of Surgeons; and in 1817 he performed one of the most remarkable operations of surgery, that of tying the aorta. In the following year, along with Mr Travers, he commenced publishing a series of Surgical Essays, but only two parts of the work appeared. In 1820, having been called to attend on George IV. (although he held no official appointment at court), he removed a strabomatous tumour from the head of the king. About six months afterwards he accepted a baronetcy, which, as he had no son, was to descend to his adopted son and nephew, Astley Cooper. In 1822 he was elected one of the Court of Examiners of the College of Surgeons; and the same year he brought out his great work on Dislocations and Fractures. In 1827 he was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons; but grief for the loss of his wife, and his own previous ill health, induced him to resign his practice, and retire to his estates at Gadesbridge. He soon, however, tired of a country life; and returning to London, resumed his practice in the following year, when he married again, and was appointed sergeant-surgeon to the king.
In 1829 appeared the first part of his Treatise on the Anatomy and Diseases of the Breast, the publication of which extended to the year 1840. In 1830 he was elected a vice-president of the Royal Society; and in 1832 he published his Anatomy of the Thymus Gland. In 1837 he visited Edinburgh, when the freedom of the city was voted him, and he was entertained at a public dinner given by the Royal College of Surgeons. He also received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
For about a year previous to his death, Sir Astley was subject to frequent attacks of giddiness, accompanied with difficulty of breathing, which gradually increased till the 12th Feb. 1841, when he died at the advanced age of 73. He was interred, by his own desire, beneath the chapel of Guy's Hospital; and a colossal statue by Bailey was erected to his memory in St Paul's Cathedral.