Sir Astley Cooper is the first surgeon to whom we are indebted for the performance of an operation designed to remedy in a measurable degree—in a few cases even to cure—the malformation known as Spina bifida, a condition which consists of a deficiency of the spinous processes of the vertebrae by which the theca enclosing the spinal marrow distends and protrudes to such a degree as to form a tumor, any opening into which has been commonly considered as necessarily attended by fatal effects. Sir Astley attributes the successful issue of the cases under his care to the employment of needles, and not the lancet, to discharge the fluid.
Many other instructive cases were reported by Sir Astley in later years, but the lack of space does not permit me to mention them here. It is enough for me to state that in his “Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Surgery” (published by Mr. F. Tyrrell, Surgeon of St. Thomas’s Hospital) very full details are furnished concerning all of Sir Astley’s operative work.
Among the honors conferred upon this distinguished surgeon during the later years of his life the following deserve to be mentioned: President of the College of Surgeons in 1827; Surgeon to the King in 1828; and Vice-President of the Royal Society in 1830. His income is said to have risen in 1813 to the very large sum of £21,000 ($105,000). His death occurred in 1841.
CHAPTER XV
ENGLISH LEADERS IN MEDICINE AND SURGERY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES
Second Group: William and John Hunter and Sir Benjamin Brodie My information concerning the Hunter Brothers is based upon data which I found in Pettigrew’s “Medical Portrait Gallery,” Parkinson’s “Hunterian Reminiscences,” and a few other published documents.
William Hunter, the elder of the two brothers who attained such marked distinction in the world of medicine during the eighteenth century, was born in 1718 in the west of Scotland. During his early manhood he devoted his attention to the study of theology at the College of Glasgow; but, losing soon his interest in these studies, he turned his attention to medicine, a branch of science which he found much more congenial. His advance in this new field of labor was rapid, for already at the age of twenty-eight he was invited by a society of naval surgeons to deliver a course of lectures on operative surgery. Two years later (in 1748) he became connected with the Middlesex Hospital and the British Lying-in Hospital, and from that time forward his chief interest was centred in obstetrics. Rising rapidly in public favor it was not long before he acquired a large fortune. In 1764 he became Physician Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte, and in 1768 was appointed Professor of Anatomy in the Royal Academy.
His greatest work, which was begun in 1751 and published in 1783, bears the title: “An Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus and its Contents.” Pettigrew speaks of this work, which eventually comprised thirty-four plates (drawn from Hunter’s dissections and engraved by some of the best English engravers),
as one of the most splendid medical works ever published. It is not, perhaps too much to say that the engravings have never been surpassed.... A period of thirty years was necessary, to obtain sufficient instances to develop all the changes occurring in the human uterus during the progress of gestation.... The treatise upon this subject was intended to be a separate production; but Dr. Hunter did not live to publish it. It remained for his nephew, Dr. Baillie, to submit this to the profession, which he did in 1794, as an “Anatomical Description of the Gravid Uterus and its Contents.”